


The Blind Boy

by jilliancares



Category: Phan, dan and phil
Genre: DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phanfiction, blind!dan, disability!dan, phanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:20:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan Howell liked to think of his entire life as a series of tragic accidents. Because really, how many people can say that they managed to become blind and obtain a supposedly Cute Boy’s hate all in the span of one year? And Phil Lester has not had the best school life, so in order to avoid bullying or a bad reputation, he refuses to take shit from anyone at this new school. Even if that someone just so happens to be blind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: vivid descriptions of a car crash, panic attack, bullying (mental and physical), and very brief (like two sentences) unwanted sexual advancements

**PROLOGUE:**

On the day that turned out to be the worst day of his life, Dan Howell, ironically enough, was having a very good day.

So many little things were adding up to make his day a good one. In instances that something should’ve gone wrong, everything just happened to go right, and Dan’s mood was incredibly high because of it.

Just that morning, Dan had wandered down the steps, blearily rubbing his eyes and slumping past his mother, who patted his back as he passed. “There’s cereal in the cupboard, I believe,” she’d informed, and Dan had nodded at her, continuing to the kitchen.

His mother had been right, of course, but a cursory search through the pantry had revealed that there was only one kind of cereal left, which was one of those gross ones, that claimed to harbor “healthy chocolate” within while mostly containing tasteless whole wheat grain and stiff, papery, dried fruit.

Dan had sighed, and opened the box half heartedly, only to realize that within was a hidden bag of Shreddies, and certainly his day was looking up already. And his day continued like that from there. The milk carton in the fridge, which had unfortunately gone sour, was immediately replaced upon his dad’s arrival in the kitchen, who had just returned from the store with a brand new carton of milk in hand.

“Perfect!” Dan had exclaimed, and enjoyed a very healthy and nutritional breakfast of sugary wheat flakes.

At the bus station Dan realized he had forgotten his wallet and couldn’t afford to board the bus, but his bad mood was instantly abated when he reached his hand into the pocket of his jeans to reveal he had just enough for the bus in quarters.

Wondering what he could’ve possibly done to deserve all this good luck, Dan sauntered onto the bus and took a seat directly in the middle, which oddly enough, was fairly empty. This added to Dan’s good mood, because he didn’t really like having conversation forced on him by talkative neighbors.

Looking back on this day, Dan would give almost anything to have had this good luck disappear. If he could travel back in time and rip the jeans from his past self, so that he couldn’t possible find the money for the bus, then he would. If he could have exchanged his Shreddies into those bland, healthy cereals, he would, because certainly he would have waited around moping, and he wouldn’t have even made it to the bus station in time for his bus. If he could even make it so that his father returned later, or forgot to pick up milk, Dan wouldn’t even hesitate, because then he would’ve been forced to actually prepare something, which definitely would’ve caused him to miss his bus.

And oh, how Dan wished he’d missed the bus.

Because on that bus, on that lucky day, where he was seated quite alone and in a particularly good mood, Dan got hit by a car. Of course, the car hit the bus first, and really, it was more that the bus caved inward, that the bus hit Dan, but nonetheless, Dan Howell was squashed by a fucking vehicle.

He didn’t remember much of it. They’d been crossing an intersection, that much he knew, and some asshole had decided that red lights didn’t apply to them and had gunned the accelerator. Dan could remember seeing it coming straight towards him, straight towards the mostly unoccupied middle of the bus. He could remember thinking _this can’t be good_ as well as _I’m going to be late for school_ though he most certainly didn’t think _this is going to change my life forever._

There’d been a loud, earsplitting screech, and the horrible, sickening sound of metal on metal, of metal caving and ripping and tearing and crushing in on itself. Dan had had to be informed of all the things he’d missed, while he was being crushed by a fucking car.

That the crushing, concaving metal had crushed and concaved right into him, that he’d been flung from his seat, to the other side of the bus. That he’d hit the opposite wall, headfirst, and that the bus was set out for revenge, for it kept coming, kept crushing and concaving and had pinned Dan against the wall.

Everything had hurt. Dan could feel multiple parts of his body on fire, he was sure that was the only answer, and he prayed to every entity in the sky that someone would please, _please_ douse him with water. And his head had been throbbing, absolutely aching, and blood was running down his face, was in his eyes, and he couldn’t see because of it.

The entire bus had been filled with loud noises. There was shouting and screaming and crying, and Dan couldn’t make a single sound because everything just hurt so much, and he was sure that if he opened his mouth for even a second his life and soul would escape through it.

People had been screaming to call the police, to call an ambulance, to call for _help_ , and distantly Dan had wondered if anyone was dead. If _he_ was dead. Then, of course, he’d passed out. He’d felt himself slipping away, and all Dan could think was _but I didn’t even scream, I didn’t even open my mouth._

—

Waking up in the hospital had been terrifying. Everything had happened very slowly, and Dan’s brain had felt like it’d been dipped in syrup. Each thought came to him slowly, and he struggled to follow them, but they ended abruptly and left him in pain and confusion.

He could hear a steady beeping beside him, and the noise annoyed him more than the pain in his head did, the one that throbbed with his heart beat. Blatantly, he realized that he very well couldn’t be dead.

Dan realized that he could hear something other than the beeping, and that was the sound of pages turning. He figured that this could only mean that his mother was beside him, because who else would resort to reading books when her son was laying incapacitated in the bed beside her?

Fighting the bizarre urge to laugh, Dan turned his head slightly towards her. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and debated opening his eyes, but he wasn’t looking forward to the pain that would add to the throbbing in his head when he added light into the mix.

“Mum?” he croaked.

The page turning stopped, and her hands immediately found his. She was pressing kisses all over his hands, whispering _“thank you, thank you,”_ to God knows who, and deliriously, Dan hoped that someone had washed his hands for him, because there were just so many germs on buses.

“Oh Dan, oh baby,” his mum whispered, and Dan laughed croakily.

“You’re embarrassing me, Mum,” he joked, and she laughed a laugh that sounded like a sob, holding his hands just as tight as ever.

Deciding that he should grant his panicking mum with eye contact, he wrenched open his eyes, already preparing for the harsh hospital light to invade his corneas.

Confusion his Dan like a bus ( _ha_!) when the opening of his eyes greeted him with, not the image of the hospital room he’d been clearly imagining, but yet more darkness. Who the hell had put a blindfold on him?

“Mum?” he said, and she was hiccuping slightly. Sobbing hiccups. Dan would roll his eyes at her, but she wouldn’t get the full effect, seeing as she couldn’t even see his eyes under this blindfold.

“Yes?” she answered, voice still quite sad and cautious sounding.

“Can you take this blindfold off me?” he laughed, a smile quickly finding its way to his mouth. His mother’s fingers tightened around his.

“Dan…” she began. Her tone was scary, threatening. It offered bad news and horrible feelings and Dan did not want to hear it. He heard that voice when his dog had died and when his grandfather had gotten Alzheimer’s Disease and he just did not want to hear about all the other people that’d gotten hurt or possibly died on that bus. He wasn’t ready to face the pain of everything that had just happened, especially not while he couldn’t even look his own mother in the eye.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, and, with difficulty, pulled his hand from hers and reached for his face. He found thick gauze over his forehead, and below it… bare skin. A small frown found Dan’s mouth, and his fingers searched and searched for a fabric that wasn’t there. He scrambled for something to hold onto, something to pull away the darkness from his eyes, something to prove that this was all a joke, or just a horrific, horrible nightmare.

“Wha—?” he breathed, his fingers flitting carefully over his eyelids. His completely, uncovered, unfettered eyelids.

“Oh baby. I’m so sorry,” his mother whispered, and really, she needed to be quiet, because Dan couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t comprehend what the hell was going on.

“Mum?” he said, panic edging its way into his voice.

“Dan, sweetheart—”

“ _Mum_?” he repeated, louder, cutting her off. Because mums can fix everything, they just can. His mum was going to go talk to someone, the receptionist, or the doctor. She’d march right up the stairs into heaven and talk to _Jesus_ if she had to, because she was a mum! She could fix this.

She was crying again, and he could tell that she was trying to cry quietly, likely for his benefit, but he didn’t need that. He needed her to go and fix this. He needed _someone_ to fix this.

He tried to sit up, but everything ached, and distantly, he could feel various bandages all along his body, hiding from view ( _someone’s_ view) the many injuries he’d obtained.

Perhaps by accident, Dan started to panic. And he couldn’t panic, because panicking meant admitting that this was real, that this was happening, and he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t possibly admit that this was real because it wasn’t. This was a nightmare, he was still on the bus, still trying to be extracted from the metal shards of torture impaling his body, and _God_ , he wasn’t here. He _wasn’t_.

“Help,” Dan whispered, and his mother abruptly stopped crying, was gripping his hand again. He could barely register this though, could barely hear or feel anything other than the thundering in his ears, the panic parading throughout his body. He couldn’t breathe. He’d survived the car crash but now he was going to die because he couldn’t breath and fire was burning in his lungs and panic was tearing him limb from limb and this _couldn’t be real_ , it couldn’t!

He didn’t register the sound of a button being hit by his head, nor the near immediate response of the door opening and doctors pouring in, trying to comfort him with words, but he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything. He could feel their hands on his body, trying to hold him down and comfort him but there were so many hands and Dan was drowning with fire in his lungs and maybe it’d be better if he died anyway, because then he wouldn’t have to deal with _this_.

Because Dan Howell was blind.

And wasn’t it such a shame that he was scared of the dark?

—

Phil Lester had never been, to be quite frank, so sick of this shit.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to be a teenager, he also had to be gay and bullied because of it.

Each morning Phil woke up and tried to plan his day in a way that would get him picked on the least. Usually this started with his clothes, and he’d have to omit anything that was pink or girly or nerdy. Granted, he didn’t have very many pink or girly things, but his wardrobe was chock full of nerdy things. Still, he was careful to forgo the clothes he liked and don something monochrome and plain, something impossible to be picked on for. He wore black skinny jeans and nice, clean shoes and a button up shirt. His appearance was casual and clean and there was virtually nothing that he could be picked apart because of.

Next he did his hair, and tried to make it fall in a way that wasn’t ridiculous or hideous or likely to get him called a girl because of. If he grew it out too long, then he was a girl, and he liked it up the arse. If it was styled nicely, then he cared about his appearances too much, and he was such a fag, and various kinds of food were likely to be smeared in his hair at lunch. So it had to look presentable but not as if he’d actually tried to make it look so.

After standing in front of the mirror for an obscene amount of time, during which he picked apart his appearance and pointed out every flaw as if he were the one bullying himself (and honestly, sometimes it felt like he was) he would run down the stairs, most likely late from the amount of times that he changed his outfit and remade his appearance from scratch.

At the bottom of the stairs, he would debate breakfast _and_ lunch, trying to decide if either were worth it. If he chanced breakfast, and managed to get food on himself or his outfit, the outcome could be drastic. And if he had a run-in with Jacob and his cronies before school, there was always the chance that he wouldn’t be able to contain the food inside his stomach. And if he managed to throw up on his clothes, he’d have to return home, repeat the entire process from scratch, and then be late to school, get a detention, and likely a grounding from his parents for getting detention. And of course, because of this he might not have time to do his homework, so he’d have to stay up late to get it done or else he’d get another detention and another grounding and the effect would snowball. So instead he’d stay up to get it done, and the next morning he’d have under-eye bags, and he’d either get brutally picked on for having them, or he’d cover them with his mother’s concealer, and risk being found out by Jacob, who would call him a faggot for wearing makeup.

And so really, Phil decided that it was probably easiest to just skip the breakfast.

He decided to bypass lunch as well, because there was always the chance that it would get stolen or that it’d get destroyed if he ran into Jacob, and even if he didn’t, Jacob could be bored at lunch, and could come looking for him…

Deciding to skip two out of the three meals of the day, Phil hurried out the door and began walking to school. This was a risk, because the bus that _should_ take him to school would drive past him, and Jacob rode that bus, and it wouldn’t be the first time Phil had had things thrown at him as it passed. Walking was better than actually riding the bus though, because that left a long amount of time for Phil to get picked on.

Phil swallowed a sigh as he dragged himself up the front stairs of his school and made his way through the halls. No one called out to him in greeting, and he didn’t even have any friends. Not anymore.

See, before he’d been forcibly removed from the closet (Phil had been innocently doodling about an actor he’d had a crush on at the time, and Jacob had seen and blown it way out of proportion) he’d had a few friends and many acquaintances. Once he’d become the entire school’s scapegoat, however, those few friends had dissipated for fear of Jacob’s wrath.

The morning passed pretty abysmally, until Jacob came along and ruined everything (typical). Phil had gone to the bathroom, and had frozen when he’d walked in to see Jacob, currently peeing at a urinal. Phil had tried to go unnoticed. Had debated slipping back out of the bathroom or fumbling his way into a stall. But he was too late, Jacob was turning his head, had caught sight of Phil, and he was sneering, he was grimacing and wearing a look of absolute disgust.

“Come here to perv on me, faggot?” he spit, and Phil could already feeling himself retracting within himself, trying to find his safe space, where none of it would hurt.

“No! I just— I have to—”

“ _Sure_. It’s just a _coincidence_ that you’d come in here when I have my cock out. Your gay little mouth is probably dying to suck it!” Jacob taunted, and by now he’d shoved his dick back into his pants and was advancing on Phil.

“No!” Phil said, practically pleaded.

“You _wouldn’t_ be thankful to suck my cock?” Jacob questioned, and it was a trap. Because if Phil said no then he was ungrateful and deserved to be kicked to the floor and if he said yes then he was a disgusting faggot and there was just no way out.

“Stop,” Phil whimpered, still backing away, except he wasn’t near the door anymore, he was near the sinks, and those were hard and dangerous and there was no way out, _no way out._

“You know, I’m feeling generous today. I’ll think I’ll give you the chance to actually suck my cock in that whore mouth of yours,” Jacob sneered.

He stepped closer, and his hand reached out. Before Phil could even take a second to think, Jacob was holding his crotch, was cupping his groin in a tight fist and pushing upwards, and Phil was flinching back, recoiling so hard that the sink hit him hard in the back, and there was definitely going to be a bruise there tomorrow. Tears swam in Phil’s eyes, from both the pain and humiliation of Jacob touching him as well as the tender skin of his back and something inside Phil snapped.

It was like he’d spent all this time getting bullied, taking their insults and hits, and they’d all piled on and on until finally Phil couldn’t take it anymore, and he exploded.

“ _No_!” he screamed, practically erupted, and it was so loud. It echoed off the bathroom walls over and over again and Jacob actually flinched backwards.

“I won’t!” he sobbed, and he wasn’t even aware of what he was doing, but his hands ached, his knuckles hurt. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” Phil was chanting, and for some reason Jacob was on the floor, and Phil didn’t know how he’d gotten there.

Phil was kicking him, and he couldn’t stop, because it felt so good to hurt someone the way he’d been hurt, to hurt someone on the outside the way he was always hurting on the inside. And Jacob had gone limp, had simply curled into a ball but Phil was still kicking him, and Jacob was jerking across the floor with the weight of Phil’s kicks.

He laid into him with everything he had. He kicked him with feeling, remember all the things Jacob had done to him. Remembered the times that he’d been shoved to the ground, how’d he’d been kicked in the stomach so hard he couldn’t breathe, how he’d been left on the ground to cry, and his attackers spit had joined his tears, had slid down his cheek, thick and hot and Phil had felt so ashamed. He kicked Jacob until his foot hurt from kicking, and he was sobbing as he kicked him, sobbing as he hurt him the way he’d been hurt.

He barely registered it when people were grabbing his arms, pulling him backwards, away from Jacob. For some reason Phil didn’t even think that it might be teachers, he just immediately thought it was some of Jacob’s friends, that they were going to hurt him so bad, beat him bloody, that he wouldn’t even survive this encounter.

“Please no,” he sobbed, struggling against the hands on his body. And they felt so gross, there were so many, holding his arms and his shoulders and his sides and how long was it going to be before they slid down, touched him where he didn’t want to be touched?

“Don’t touch me please, don’t touch me,” he begged, still struggling against the hands, and they weren’t touching him anywhere inappropriate but how long until they did?

“God don’t, please don’t,” he cried, and finally he looked into the mirror, and saw a plethora of adults, of teachers and authorities and Phil was saved. He stopped struggling, and just stood there gasping for breath, tears trailing down his cheeks and his body shaking so hard he could barely stand.

After that day, Phil was expelled.

Jacob was too, of course, once the story was out, but Phil’s school didn’t want to be known as the school that continued to teach the boy who beat another boy into an ambulance. And so Phil was expelled, and his parents were informed of his hardships, and given a list of schools who’d agreed to teach Phil in the area. Instead, his parents decided to move, to give Phil a fresh new start where his exploits wouldn’t be the talk of the town and he could start fresh, with nothing but a single expulsion to his name. His parents agreed to let him take a year of online schooling, so he could stay at home and recover from his experiences, and when Phil was finally ready to start again at a public school, his parents supported him wholeheartedly.

And he didn’t have to be gay at his new school. He didn’t have to get bullied or be scared or be careful of how he dressed and styled his hair and ate. In fact, he didn’t have to take any shit at all, from anyone. If a single person so much as _looked_ at him wrong, Phil would explain just how he’d gotten expelled.


	2. Chapter 2

Dan sat with his head placed firmly in his hand. Carrie sat beside him, and he could hear her pencil scratching across the paper as their teacher instructed them. Technically, Dan was supposed to be taking notes too, using his braille laptop, but he rarely got in trouble. After all, who was willing to get mad at The Blind Boy? Plus he could always copy the notes from Carrie later, even if she’d grumble the whole time he pleaded with her to let him copy them.

“Please Carrie!” he usually said, pushing out his bottom lip in what was undeniably a pout.

“No! I always do this for you. If I say yes, you’ll never learn.”

“But if you say no, I _really_ won’t learn. And I’ll fail the test,” Dan would point out. Carrie would then release a huge, exaggerated groan, and begin to read her notes out loud.

Currently, Dan was fiddling with a loose string on his hoodie. He was twirling it around his finger, and then unwrapping it and winding it around the other way, before doing it again. It felt like a moderately long strand, and he wondered if it was noticeable to other people when he put his arms down, if it fluttered out of his sleeve and into plain site.

He was constantly warring with caring about his appearance. On one hand, he’d used to be particularly picky about the way he looked. He’d spend minutes in front of the mirror, fluffing and smoothing his hair to perfection, worrying about the way it would look. And his appearance had always been of importance, his clothes sharp and straight, not a wrinkle in sight. He’d taken pride in the way he looked.

Now, of course, he had no idea how he looked. When he got his hair cut, he had to take his mother’s word for the fact it looked good, and yet back when he could see, she’d never been able to notice when the haircuts he’d gotten had been wretched. If he spilled food on his clothes, he had no way of knowing, not unless someone was nice enough to point it out, and then to help him out if he needed it. Most of the time, if something like this were to happen no one would say anything, because Dan was blind and therefore different, and different was weird, and so speaking to him was an anomaly. Thankfully he had Carrie, who had no qualms about helping him out in horrible situations like that.

“You’re having a bad hair day, Dan,” she would inform, and Dan would gnaw on his lip, before finally caving and asking her to please fix it if she could.

“You have crumbs all over your crotch, Dan,” she would state, and Dan would awkwardly wipe his hands over the crotch of his pants, until she told him that he’d got them all.

“You have… something… white… on your trousers… Dan?” she’d told him on one, horrible, horrible occasion, and, face flaming red, he’d begged her to take him to a bathroom and help sort him out. He’d been dragged into the girl’s bathroom (“What is a _boy_ doing in here?” one girl had shrieked. “Well it’s not like he can _see_ ,” Carrie had snarled) and Carrie, his wonderful, wonderful friend, had helped him.

“How did this even happen,” she’d questioned, making Dan’s face heat up all over again.

“Wha- I.. are you asking _how_ …?” he’d stuttered.

“No! But how’d it get on your trousers?”

“I don’t _know_! I didn’t see it happen!”

“Obviously.”

Talking about sexual things with Carrie had gotten a lot easier after that, and it helped that he never had to look at her while they did. He’d once even admitted that he was terrified to masturbate, because what if someone could see him and he just didn’t know?

Still, it was good that he had Carrie to help him with his appearance, even if he didn’t always want it. BC Dan (Before-Crash Dan) would have thought it outrageous that Dan might consider going out in public without washing his hair, but now he simply found it hard to care about the way he looked when he couldn’t even see it himself. Why should he care? It wasn’t like he’d ever have to suffer looking at his bedraggled hair or slumpy clothes.

And slumpy clothes he had. He always asked his mother to buy him black clothes (“But why does everything I buy you have to be black, sweetheart?” “Because if that’s all I see, then why shouldn’t it be what others see when they see me?”) and the more hoodies and sweatpants the better. He supposed that his mother could actually be buying him vibrantly pink clothes, but he didn’t think she would actually do that. Plus, Carrie often commented on how he looked like death walking down the halls sometimes.

“I _feel_ like death,” he would reply, and he’d have a strong inclination that Carrie was rolling her eyes.

“And why’s that?”

Dan had many replies to that one. “Just do,” or “I was hit by a car once,” but usually it was “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

It wasn’t rare for Dan to stay up for many hours in the night, bouncing between a state of exhaustion and semi-consciousness. And it didn’t help that he was often plagued by a feeling of unease, thinking that things were around him and touching him but being unable to see what or where. He always felt incredibly cheated when he couldn’t sleep, too. Because dreams were probably his favorite thing. It was the only time he could see things, images and colors and barely remembered faces. Every time he opened his eyes in the morning he was hit by confusion and sadness. At first, he’d been filled with panic every time he’d woken up in the morning, and for weeks his mother had been woken with his screams for help.

It’d been horrible how much he’d needed help in the beginning. He’d find himself crying in various places, confused and distraught. Once he’d been stuck in the bathroom, unable to find the toilet paper and unwilling to ask for help. Hours had passed, and he’d just sat there in defeat and embarrassment. Eventually his mother had come looking for him, and she’d knocked on the bathroom, asking him if he was okay.

“I can’t find the toilet paper,” he’d said, followed by a loud sniff.

“Can I come in?”

Dan hadn’t wanted her to come in. He’d been fifteen at the time, too old for his mother to come into the bathroom with him, but he’d had no choice. “Yes,” he’d sobbed, shoving his face in his hands while his mother unlocked the bathroom door. She’d found the toilet paper for him (it’d rolled under the edge of the sink) and never again had it been anywhere but right where it was meant to be.

Many other incidents like that had happened. Dan, unable to find food, shampoo, money, his _cane_. It was so inconvenient being blind, especially after he’d spent his entire life depending on his sight, and it was exhausting to try to adjust to any other way of living. He _still_ struggled, for fucks sake, he was just better at it now.

“Dan,” Carrie whispered from beside him. He turned his head toward his slightly, knowing people found it uncomfortable when he conversed with them without looking at them. They felt like he wasn’t paying attention.

Of course, Carrie barely cared about this at all. He’d mostly did it for other people, and though he knew Carrie wouldn’t mind even if he faced away from her while they conversed, he did it out of common courtesy. But it was nice to have someone who understood him, who didn’t get uncomfortable with his habits and needs. She was a wonderful friend— his best friend. His only friend, as a matter of face.

He’d had more friends before he’d gone blind. It was just that they’d found it too difficult. They hadn’t liked the guilty feelings they’d gotten when they’d played video games or basket ball or anything that included sight. They never wanted to just sit and talk, or to play mind games. They were always interested in things that included sight, and since Dan couldn’t see, he was left behind. Becoming blind made him an outsider, and anyone who’d talked to him easily when he could see didn’t talk to him now.

Carrie hadn’t been his friend before. He’d met her because she’d been training a guiding eyes dog, which later became his. She’d been going to classes to teach the dog, and he’d been going to classes to learn how to command the dog. They’d met and had quickly become friends. He’d remembered her vaguely from school, having seen her in the halls and such, and she’d known him in the same way. Dan had wished desperately that he’d gotten a better look at her before he’d lost his sight, now that she was his friend. All that he really knew was that she had extremely curly hair, which was fun to play with (he’d learned that after they’d become friends, obviously).

“What?” he answered, after she’d nudged him and he realized that he’d failed to answer her.

“There’s a new student!” she informed.

“Details,” Dan demanded.

This was something that they did a lot. Carrie would fill Dan in with all the information his eyes refused to give him, and in return Dan would— well… be really thankful. Occasionally they played it the other way around, and Dan told her about the quiet tweets he could hear in the trees and the chirps in the grass, which apparently she couldn’t discern. But it usually happened like this.

“Tall. About as tall as you, I think. He has black hair, a similar style as your own. He’s wearing a colorful shirt which looks great on him. He’d super fit, my God, look at those jeans!”

“Carrie,” Dan growled, digging his fingers into his desk.

“Just saying that you couldn’t go wrong with this one,” she said nonchalantly. She was constantly trying to suggest who he should have a crush on, ever since he’d told her he was gay.

“Anyway, he’s cute, but he looks kind of angry, like you shouldn’t fuck with him.” she said. “Looks like he’d be good at protecting innocent, blind boyfriends…”

“Fuck off.”   
“I think his eyes are blue, but I can’t really tell from back here. He doesn’t look nervous at all.”

“Not nervous? But it’s his first day!” Dan protested. Carrie made a noncommittal noise.

“Just telling you what I see.”

Dan opened his mouth to demand more details (shoes? Hands? Posture? Face shape? There were so many things that sighted people could take into account with barely a care, that Dan desperately wished he could have just a hint of) but his teacher started talking.

“Class, this is Phil Lester, he’s new here and it’d be great if you could welcome him kindly,” she informed. The new student said nothing.

“Why don’t you take a seat in that empty desk over there?” she suggested, and Phil again didn’t answer, but his footsteps did, walking directly towards the back of the class. To the empty desk in front of Dan.

Holding back a sigh, Dan cursed his bad luck. He and Carrie definitely wouldn’t be able to gossip about the new kid now, what with him sitting two feet in front of them.

“Did you bring lunch today?” Carrie asked suddenly, almost making Dan jump.

“Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not!”

“Then where’s your lunch bag?”

Dan paused. He could lie and say it was in his bag, but then Carrie might insist on checking it. Instead, he admitted defeat. “Dammit.”

“Why didn’t you bring it?”   
“Well my mum forgot to make it and then I couldn’t find—” Dan broke off as there was a quiet scoff directly in front of them. It was probably not intended to be heard, but Dan had excellent hearing.

“Need a cough drop?” he said, leaning forward in his seat slightly, and raising his voice a bit. He heard Phil’s sharp intake of breath, likely at being caught as well as addressed.

“No.”

“Is there a problem, then?”   
“It’s just— your mum still makes your lunch?” Phil responded, sounding incredulous.

It was true. Dan’s mother made his lunch because it was easiest that way, but that didn’t mean he didn’t fix himself meals occasionally. It just took him longer, and he was more than likely to get injured in the process.

“I’ll have you know,” Carrie butt in, “that _Dan_ —”

Dan shushed her, for inexplicable reasons. He didn’t want to give the other boy a crutch to apologize on. He wanted Phil to just apologize because it was the right thing to do. So _what_ if Dan’s mum made his lunch for him? Even if he could see? It was just a nice thing to do, and he was grateful for it.

“What?’’ Phil scoffed.

“Hates to make his own lunch,” Dan responded with a shrug. He was staring directly at Phil, or at least, where his voice was coming from. Dan hoped that if Phil were looking at him, he’d assume that he could see. After all, Dan didn’t wear darkened glasses or anything, despite knowing that seeing his broken and useless eyes, seeing they were moving and _knowing_ they weren’t seeing, happened to creep many of his peers out.

Phil scoffed again at that. “Okay.”

“Does your mum not love you enough to make your lunch?” Dan taunted. And sure, okay, he _had_ been planning to make Phil feel guilty and apologize, but that ‘okay’ had been beyond judgmental, and Dan had never been very good at holding his temper.

“Suck my dick,” Phil muttered quietly, so low that Dan _knew_ he wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Funnily enough, _that’s_ what your mum had for lunch yesterday!” Dan said, and suddenly pain lanced through his fingers. Someone was bending them backward.

Dan gasped, tugging them free. “What the _fuck_?” Carrie demanded from beside him.

“Don’t mess with me,” Phil said calmly, presumably turning back around in his seat.

“Oh, he’s shoved in earbuds. On his first day too! He won’t last,” Carrie said.

“How the hell did Mrs. Frisk not see that?” Dan whispered.

“She’s blind as a bat,” Carrie answered, before giggling quietly. “Or _you_.”

“I hate you,” Dan groans, but he finally lets himself tune back into Mrs. Frisk and actually start taking down some notes.

Soon enough the bell rings, and Dan can hear the familiar sound of books and binders slamming shut, bags zipping close and students talking, shoving their way out of their seats and storming towards the door. Dan climbed out of his seat, taking a moment to swing his bag over his shoulder. Carrie was waiting for him, and he took a few tentative steps in her direction while he reached behind himself, trying to grab his folded up cane from the side pocket of his bag.

Suddenly, a force slammed into his shoulder, and Dan felt himself flying forward. He threw out his hands, his cane still lodged somewhere in his bag, and hit the ground with a resounding pain in his knees and the palms of his hands.

“What the hell was that for?” Carrie demanded, before immediately coming forward and helping Dan stand. He kept his hand wrapped around her arm, both for support and out of fear. He felt disoriented, and he was afraid that he'd be knocked to the ground again. He certainly can’t fight back, and he can’t expect Carrie to fight for him either.

“It was an accident,” the now-familiar voice of Phil Lester answers, and Dan leveled a glare in the direction it came from.

“No it wasn’t. You need to lay off Dan,” she demanded, sounding so threatening that even Dan would be scared if she wasn’t on his side.

“And why are you fighting his battles for him?” Phil taunted. Dan rolled his eyes, already knowing that Carrie was winding up to spill a massive load of beans right over his head.

“Because he _can’t_ fight his battles because he’d never know _where_ they were or _who_ they were against,” she snarled, pausing for breath before adding: “because he can’t see.”

“What?”   
“He’s _blind_ , you idiot!” And with that Carrie spun around, Dan still clinging to her arm, and rushed them away. They were speed walking, practically running, and Dan was terrified. His cane was still not out and he was moving much too fast and despite the fact that he trusted Carrie with his life, he wasn’t really willing to test it.

“Carrie, Carrie, slow down!” he pleaded, just as they passed through the doorway and exited the classroom. He knew because they were moving so fast that he bumped into it, muttering an “ow” as he went.

“Sorry,” Carrie said quickly, although did nothing to shorten her stride nor slow the pace. Dan would’ve wondered where the hell Mrs. Frisk was during that incident, but he knew she usually left the classroom with her class to take a break in the teacher lounge.

“Where are we going?” Dan pried, deciding that Carrie wasn’t going to slow down at all, and gripping her arm tighter in response.

“Lunch.”

“But it’s not lunch time yet,” Dan protested. “And I don’t have one.”

Suddenly, a loud clang, the sound resulting from one of the heavy school doors being pushed open, sounded in the air, and a cool breeze hit Dan’s face. “Are we skipping school?” he asked.

“No,” Carrie answered. She continued to drag Dan at a pace that was beginning to leave him breathless.

“Are you sure? Because we’re outside. As in, not inside the school.”   
“Shut up.” Carrie said. “We’re getting lunch and then going back, so it’s not skipping.”

Her logic was frayed somewhere, Dan was sure, but he decided to accept it. Quite suddenly, they were descending, and Dan squeaked loudly as he tripped down a step and flung his arm out, desperately, relieved to hit a stair-railing and cling onto it.

“Carrie!” he shrieked. “Blind! Remember?”

“I’m so sorry Dan,” she said, before linking her hand in his and leading him down the stairs at a much more reasonable pace. Dan kept one hand fastened tightly on the railing, however, not quite trusting his best friend in this moment. “It’s just— God!”

“God?”

“That guy’s such a jerk!”   
“I know a lot of people who look up to him, actually.”

“You do?” Carrie demanded, incredulous. “Ugh! _Dan_! Not God! Phil!”

“See _this_ is why I’m gay,” Dan informed. “Women are much too confusing.”

Carrie groaned, but stomped her way forward. Dan heard the familiar sound of her car unlocking, and then she was opening his door for him. He murmured a thanks, and she made her way around to the other side of the car.

She was quick to peel out of the parking lot, and Dan tried to quell the familiar tides of anxiety in his chest. He hated riding in cars. Buses, he could do. And the underground was amazing, truly. Because those were set things. They came and went to the same place, on schedule (mostly), and Dan knew all he had to do was count and he’d be showing up in the right place. But cars were unpredictable.

There were so many streets to turn down, so many places to go. It was all dependent on one person in the car, and just sitting in one was placing you life in their hands. (Again, Dan trusted Carrie with his life, but he’d already been close to losing his via car once…) Not knowing where he was going and when he’d get there was stressful and anxiety inducing, and it was only because he trusted Carrie so much that he wasn’t grilling her on where they were going and which street they were on and for how long and for how many miles. He itched to know what other cars were on the road, where the sun was in the sky, the trees on the sides. Had the trees that he’d seen a year prior grown at all?

Dan pushed these drab thoughts from his mind, instead concentrating on the fact that he was about to be fed. It was a relief when they were swinging into a parking lot (informed by Carrie) and parking in front of a deli. Dan brought his cane, deciding to no longer let himself depend on his slightly undependable friend.

“What do you want?” Carrie asked, as they walked into the shop, an annoying bell ringing above their heads.

“What do they have?”

Carrie read off a list of sandwiches, and Dan finally settled on one, thanking her in the process. They stepped up to the counter together, and Carrie ordered first. Dan was leaning against the counter slightly, his cane held loosely by his side.

“And for him?” an unfamiliar, female voice said. Her voice seemed to be coming from behind the counter, and Dan levered his unseeing stare on her in a slight glower.

“I’ll have the steak and cheese,” he stated, somewhat coldly. The lady seemed surprised to be addressed by him (“oh!”) and he knew that Carrie felt almost as annoyed for him as he did. It was the worst thing to be talked about as if her wasn’t there, or to not be addressed simply because he couldn’t see. He hated it when strangers talked to the people Dan was with instead of Dan himself, just because he couldn’t see didn’t mean he couldn’t hear or talk. It was demeaning and annoying.

With sandwiches in hand they returned to the school, Dan munching down on his as they drove.

“Dan?”

“Huh?” Dan replied around a mouthful of sandwich.

“You’ve dropped a bit of lettuce on your crotch,” Carrie informed, and Dan impatiently swiped at it.

“It’s on your floor now.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“No problem!”


	3. Chapter 3

Phil stood hidden between two shelves in the library, desperately trying to come up with something to do. He’d already had two classes today, and he’d managed to make zero friends and one (possible) enemy, which was a horrendous mistake. How should he have known that he was picking on the school’s only blind kid? And sure, maybe he shouldn’t have been picking on anyone at all, but he had to do it! He had to establish himself as someone who wouldn’t be easily bullied, someone who wouldn’t get knocked down.

Plus, as Phil hadn’t known that that Dan guy was blind, he thought it was pretty ridiculous that he hadn’t brought lunch simply because his mother hadn’t made it for him. Phil thought that he was being spoiled and insolent, not helpless and actually incapable of making it himself. And he hadn’t expected the boy to hear him scoff, it’d been an extremely quiet one, after all. But he had to stand up for himself, and if standing up for himself meant pushing others down, then so be it.

Of course, then had come the absolutely horrible realization that he’d just shoved a blind boy to the floor, and that maybe he was no worse than the bullies at his old school. But it was too late by then, he certainly couldn’t apologize, seeing as that would make him look weak and easy to trample on.

Still, it sucked that he’d chosen such a cute boy to be mean to. Looking back on it, he realized how Dan’s glares and stares had never been directly on him, always slightly off to the side and unfocused. But he looked cute when he glared, his nose scrunched up and his mouth frowned. Plus, Dan’s hair kept falling in his eyes (during their interaction, at least) and he’d never really bothered to fix it, because it wasn’t like it was apprehending his sight or anything.

Phil sighed, looking at the time on his phone. It was now time for lunch, but he was debating skipping it entirely. He didn’t have any friends or anyone to sit with, so chances were that he would wander into the cafeteria and end up sitting alone at a big table, looking and feeling like a massive loser.

His stomach growled just then, and he managed to make up his mind. He could go to the cafeteria, buy his lunch, and then bring it somewhere else. As he began to make his way around the shelves, he heard familiar voices on the other side, and froze.

“C’mon, please?” Dan’s voice whined, and Phil shoved a couple of books aside to get a good look at them.

“It’s your fault for eating your entire sandwich on the car ride,” Carrie replied. She hopped up onto the nearest table, and Dan tapped his way over with his cane (if only he’d had that out during class) before feeling for the edge of the table and sliding onto it as well.

“But I’m still _hungry_ ,” he complained, and Carrie scoffed in response.

“You wouldn’t even have a lunch if it wasn’t for me. Plus, the librarian would kill us if you spilled any food in here.”

“I wouldn’t spill any!” Dan protested. He was sliding his cane shut, and he placed it beside him as he leaned back on the table, swinging his legs where they dangled over the side.

“Didn’t you _just_  spill your food in my car?”

“That’s different. I wasn’t trying to be careful,” he shrugged, and his friend shoved his shoulder, hard. Dan’s hand flew out from under him and he thunked back further on the table, landing on his elbows. “Ow!”

“Stop whining about how hungry you are and help me with my homework,” Carrie insisted, and Dan sighed.

“How am I supposed to help you in a _library_?”

“Moral support?” Carrie suggested.

Phil leaned back against the shelf behind him, tuning their conversation out. He needed to leave the library so he could get lunch, but he didn’t want the two friends to see him, to know he was here. In fact, he wanted to avoid them at all costs, which he was so far failing at.

Just then, one of the books that Phil was leaning against gave way, and fell off the other side of the shelf. It fell to the ground with a quiet thunk, and suddenly, Dan said, “ _shh_!”

“What?” Carrie said, whispering now.

“Someone’s there.”

“In the _library_? During _lunch_? Nobody’s ever in here!”

Cursing his horrible luck, Phil stayed completely silent, hoping they would ignore the fact that another student might be in here at the same time as them.

“Come on,” Dan answered, and Phil resisted the urge to shout several expletives into the air. He hastily grabbed a random book from the shelf and opened it, right before the two friends rounded the corner. Carrie stopped abruptly, and Dan stopped because she stopped.

“What are _you_  doing here?” she demanded, immediately crossing her arms over her chest. Dan stood up straighter, taking a similar defensive stance.

“Who is it?” he whispered to her.

“What, is it a crime to be in the library?” Phil answered, and Dan’s mouth dropped open in realization.

“Why aren’t you at lunch?”

“Maybe I was about to go there,” Phil said with a shrug.

Carrie’s eyes squinted at the book he was holding, before she raised a single eyebrow. “You’re reading Harry Potter?”

Phil finally looked down at the book he’d been pretending to read. “It’s a great book.”

“The guy who voices the audiobook is great,” Dan said conversationally, turning to Carrie. As if for a second, he was on Phil’s side, because why shouldn’t he be reading Harry Potter?

“I’ve never even read it,” Carrie admitted with a shrug, and Dan gasped loudly. (Phil gasped internally.)

“ _What_? Carrie! Get the first book _now_!” he demanded, and Carrie rolled her eyes.

“I’ll just listen to your audiobook with you later,” she promised, and Dan shook his head in exasperation.

“You’re crazy.”

Using their conversation as a distraction, Phil tried to sidle past them, so he could escape to the cafeteria.

“Where do you think _you’re_  going?” Carrie snarled, just as Phil was brushing past Dan.

“Lunch?”

“I think you owe Dan an apology,” she said immediately, glaring at him.

“Drop it, Carrie,” Dan muttered, almost imperceptibly. Carrie ignored him.

“I didn’t _know_  he was blind,” Phil said defensively.

“I’m _right here_ ,” Dan said angrily, spinning to face Phil.

“I didn’t know _you_  were blind,” he corrected with an exaggerated role of his eyes.

“Apologize!” Carrie insisted.

Phil let out a loud, annoyed groan, before his hands shot out and latched onto Dan’s shoulders. He tugged Dan backward, spinning him so that his back faced Phil, and then he pulled Dan even closer, wrapping his arms tightly around Dan’s middle and keeping them pressed against each other. They were about the same height, but Phil was just the slightest bit taller, which he felt immensely satisfied about.

He pressed his mouth very lightly against Dan’s ear, which was turning pink, and let his warm breath spill over it as he talked. “Your girlfriend is a stupid, annoying bitch,” he growled, and Dan was struggling in his arms, trying to get away. Carrie stood against the opposite bookshelf, looking dumbfounded and scared.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know you were blind, because if I’d known you were weak and defenseless—” at that, Dan lifted up his foot and stamped harshly on Phil’s toes. Phil grunted, and wrapped his arms tighter around Dan in retaliation, so that the breath whooshed out of him and he coughed.

“But I am not going to let her push me around, or talk to me like she thinks she’s allowed to do. And I swear to God, if she doesn’t back the fuck off, I’ll take it out on _you_ ,” and with that, he released the struggling boy and shoved him forward, directly into Carrie’s arms.

“Dan are you okay?” Phil heard her ask him, but he was already walking away. Suddenly, a large book thudded onto the floor beside Phil, having missed him by only a couple of inches. He spun back around, finding himself faced with Dan, his unseeing eyes glaring, his hand raised in the air, as if he’d just thrown a book.

“You missed,” Phil taunted, and lightning fast, Dan snatched another book from the shelf and hurled it towards Phil, who jumped out of the way just in time. He grabbed a book of his own, and prepared to throw it, but stopped. He knew it wouldn’t be fair. He knew he’d be able to hit Dan easily, while Dan struggled to even get it close to him.

“More to the left,” he heard Carrie instruct, and this time Dan threw two books, one of them catching Phil on the side of his arm. “Hit!” she cheered.

Giving up his morals, Phil threw his book, aiming low. Carrie gasped as it flew through the air, before it hit Dan’s feet, causing him to stumble backwards in shock. Phil took their moment of surprise (likely at the fact that he actually threw a book at a blind person) and darted around the side of the shelf, before he raced through the library and escaped into the hall.

—

Phil slid his tray along the metal table.

“Mashed potatoes?”

He looked at the so-called mashed potatoes, a greenish-gray, lumpy monstrosity. Phil bit down on his lip and shook his head, scooting his tray to the next server. He did accept the small, bruised apple, the watery applesauce, and the cardboard, cheese-less pizza. He resolved to pack his own lunch from that day forward.

Phil paid for his lunch and then made his way into the open room of the cafeteria. It was packed with people, and filled with an endless chatter. He scanned the different tables, feeling helpless and alone. Almost all the tables were used, and the few that were mostly empty were scattered with people sitting isolated from everyone else, people who had their ears stuffed with earbuds, their noses in books, or were talking to themselves. He tightened his fingers on his tray, still standing by the door of the kitchen, his chest tightening, filling with panic. He had nowhere to go, everyone was looking at him, he was sure. If he left they’d know, and they’d laugh, and if he sat at one of those weird tables he’d instantly be deemed weird as well, and if he sat at a random table full of people he’d be laughed right out of there.

He was currently pleading with the universe to please swallow him up and spit him out somewhere else, when a voice spoke from behind him.

“You’re new, right? Wanna sit with us?” Phil spun to face the speaker, a boy with wild curls who’d just exited the kitchen, holding a tray of his own. Phil forced his panic down and attempted to be nonchalant, to not be a loser.

“Sure,” Phil answered casually, as if he hadn’t just been on the brink of having a panic attack. He followed the curly haired boy through a weave of tables.

“I’m Pj,” the boy introduced, glancing behind himself to look at Phil as he walked. “What’s your name?”

“Phil.”

They arrived at the table, full of two other boys and one girl.

“Budge up, Jack,” Pj said, and shoved Jack’s lunch further down the table. Jack followed it, and Pj gestured for Phil to sit in the vacated seat. “Everyone, this is Phil,” Pj said.

“I’m Louise,” the girl responded immediately. She seemed friendly enough, and Phil gave her a smile and a nod.

“I’m Jack, and this is Dean,” Jack said, pointing to himself and then Dean.

“Hi,” Phil said in response.

“I can’t believe you bought lunch,” Dean said with a small shake of his head. He was eyeing Phil and Pj’s lunches in turn, shuddering with disgust. “I wouldn’t trust the school with a sealed bag of crisps.”

“Well I’m too lazy to pack my lunch, so not-pizza it is,” Pj said, before taking a large bite out of the stiff, cheese-less pizza. He chewed multiple times, and then winced as he swallowed. “Disgusting.”

“I’m never buying school lunch again,” Phil said resolutely, foregoing the not-pizza and picking up the apple. It was squishy in most places and yet still didn’t taste ripe, but he ate it anyway.

“Good man,” Jack said agreeably. “The school’s lunch gives me dia—”

“Ugh!” Dean interrupted. “Nobody wants to hear about your bowel movements.”

“I’ll listen to you talk about shit, Jack,” Louise said amicably. Jack smiled at her.

“Thank you Louise.”

“I’m sure Phil really wanted to hear about your poop during his first day here,” Pj said, and Jack shrugged.

“I’m a people pleaser.”

Lunch passed in much the same way, with banter flowing easily and Phil even finding his voice to pipe in every once in awhile. At the end of the meal, the group of friends was making plans to hang out during the upcoming weekend, and surprisingly, they invited Phil along. He agreed immediately, as it’d been years since he’d hung out with someone, or even really had a friend. He hadn’t been with anyone other than his family over the past year of online schooling, and before that he hadn’t had friends for what had felt like an extremely long time, because no one wanted to be friends with the kid who was always getting bullied. Nobody was willing to put themselves in that vulnerable position, one where they might be bullied too.

—

After school, Phil found himself wandering around town, as he was prone to do whenever he had free time. While he’d been taking online courses, he’d spent much of his time wandering from shop to shop, simply observing and wasting whatever time he could. Most of the employees in the stores even knew him from how often his trips were.

Phil ventured into a cupcake shop, finally deciding on just treating himself to something tasty. He perused the menu, ignoring the ringing of the bell as the door opened. He couldn’t decide if he wanted a cream filled cupcake, or just a regular vanilla one with chocolate frosting.

“Hey!” the worker behind the counter suddenly yelled, glaring towards the door. “No dogs allowed!”

Phil spun around, wondering what kind of idiot would bring a dog into a store, when his eyes landed on none other than Dan Howell. Of _course_.

“But it’s my seeing eye dog,” Dan protested. “She’s allowed into any building.” The dog was, in fact, harnessed with a blue vest, one that allowed it into any building.

“Sorry, I didn’t—” the employee began immediately, looking embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” Dan interrupted, and then his dog led him to the back of the line, right behind Phil.

“And what will you have?” the man said to Phil. Dan seemed to somehow know that he wasn’t the one being addressed, and Phil responded.

“Can I have a vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting?” he asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dan stiffen in shock, and his hand came down to touch his dog’s head in reassurance.

“Certainly!” The man packaged his cupcake, and Phil thanked him as he handed over his money.

Phil walked out of the shop, and was about to walk home, cupcake in hand, when he paused. He had the best opportunity to observe Dan, who would be walking out of the shop any moment. Maybe Phil could learn something about him, something that he could use to make sure Dan wouldn’t ever be able to bother him. To make sure his bitch girlfriend would leave Phil alone as well.

And so he waited, until Dan emerged from the shop, cupcake in one hand and leash in the other. He started walking in one direction, the dog leading him around people, and Phil followed, careful to not let his footsteps make a sound. Dan seemed confident walking with his seeing eye dog, as if he trusted it with his life. At one point he came to a crosswalk, and he went to walk across it, but his dog intervened, stepping in front of him. Dan stopped, waiting. The cross walk had been green, but a car ran a red light, and if the dog hadn’t stopped Dan…

Phil breathed out quietly, half relieved and half impressed. The dog was incredibly smart and well trained, and Dan clearly knew that.

“Good girl,” he heard Dan say, who reached down to pat her ear. He then went to cross the crosswalk, and the dog let him. Dan was still holding his bag with the cupcake, as was Phil, and eventually Dan turned off the sidewalk into the grass.

There was a small creek, which Phil could hear trickling pleasantly, and Dan seated himself before it. His dog laid down next to him, and rested her head in his lap. Phil ducked behind a bush, and watched him from there.

Dan finally unwrapped his cupcake, and began munching on it, ripping pieces off of it at a time. The dog kept nosing its way forward, pressing further into his lap and sniffing heavily.

“Suki!” Dan laughed, startling Phil. His laugh was pleasant, and he was still giggling, in fact, as his dog licked her lips and continued to try to nuzzle her way to the cupcake. “Fine, fine!” he said, before ripping a small piece off the bottom of the cupcake and feeding it to her. “Fatty.”

He shoved the last bite into his mouth, and his dog jumped up and licked the icing off his face. Dan was laughing again, yelling “no!” and “Suki!” as he laid on his back, and his dog stood over him, licking his face.

Dan froze suddenly, and even Phil heard it, the cracking of branches over by the creek. There were trees around the creek, obscuring whatever it was from view. Suki immediately stopped playing with Dan, and was all business. Dan stood slowly, warily, and held onto her leash.

“Hello?” he called, though the cracking of tree branches, the unmistakably sound of a person, or people, approaching over a branch strewn ground didn’t stop. “Who’s there?”

Dan began to back away, his dog following, when a person emerged from the trees. And another person. And another two people. They were all boys, and they looked like they were a grade or two above Dan. Phil was watching warily from behind the bush, wondering what the hell was happening and if he was going to have to call the police.

“K-Kyle?” Dan guessed shakily, and the person who’d emerged from the trees first, arguably the biggest and bulkiest, let out a harsh, gruff laugh. Dan froze, his hand tightening visibly on Suki’s leash, as he stared in the direction of the trees. “My parents know I’m here,” Dan said quietly, his voice shaking.

“Do they? Because I was under the impression that they almost never let you out of the house without your little girlfriend,” Kyle taunted, and Dan managed to square his shoulders.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

The group of guys started walking forwards, and Dan seemed to know somehow, heard them perhaps, because he started walking backwards.

“Leave me alone,” he said firmly.

“Or what?” one of the other guys responded.

“Or I’ll—” Dan didn’t even get a chance to finish his threat before the bulky boys were breaking into a run, straight towards Dan.

Dan’s unseeing eyes widened, and he spun around, immediately sprinting in the opposite direction. Suki was leading him, pulling him around obstacles expertly and barking warnings at the thugs chasing them. Phil broke away from the bush and ran for cover behind the trees, following them out of sight.

He could see Dan, panting and red-faced and looking scared. The guys were gaining on him, and Dan bit his lip, seemingly debating, before he ran for the trees. He raced past Phil, who crossed to the other side of the creek so the bullies wouldn’t see him, and continued to follow. Suki tried desperately to guide him, but they were running and she could only do so much, many branches scraped Dan as he passed, and soon Kyle and his friends were in the forest too, thundering towards their prey.

“Get back here!” Kyle roared, and a few steps later Dan tripped over a gnarled tree branch, flying forward sliding on the ground. Suki was barking up a storm, trying to scare the bullies off, and that’s when Phil decided to intervene. Because yes, Dan was annoying and had thrown a friggin’ book at him but no, he was not about to let him get pummeled to death by these stupid bullies. At least Phil hadn’t known Dan was blind when he’d first picked on him!

Phil darted across the river, and he reached Dan first. He reached down to grab Dan’s hand, who instantly recoiled with a whimper.

“Come _on_ ,” Phil insisted, as the gorilla people were still set on murdering Dan and there wasn’t any time left. Dan seemed astonished and afraid, but it was apparent that he recognized who Phil was. “ _Hurry_!”

Dan dragged himself to his feet, wincing, and Phil grabbed his hand, and began dragged him out of the trees.

“Wait!” Dan gasped. “Suki’s leash!” Phil spun around, cursing. The red leash was tangled in a bush, and Phil fell to his knees, desperately tugging on the material, trying to rip it free.

“Hold my cupcake,” he demanded, shoving it into Dan’s free hand, before attacking the bush with renewed vigor. The branches and leaves were scratching his hands, but he ignored the pain and _pulled_.

“Who the hell is that?” one of the gorillas behind them demanded. Phil gasped, wrapping his fingers around the material and letting out a desperate yell as he yanked at it, and it finally came free. He stood and shoved the leash back into Dan’s hand (retrieving his hopefully undamaged cupcake) and sprinted toward the road, blind boy in tow. He darted behind a row of familiar houses. They were in his own neighborhood, and he led Dan through backyards and side-streets until they reached his own house, which he yanked Dan into. They stood panting, back to back against the door, Suki immediately falling to the floor in front of him, as a flurry of furious voices raced past outside.

“I think they went this way, come on!” one yelled, muffled through the door. Dan finally relaxed, ducking down and resting his hands on his knees as he panted.

“Oh Phil, who’s this? A new friend?” an excited and currently unwelcome voice suddenly said. His mother.

“Uh…”

“I told you there was nothing to worry about for your first day!” his mother said excitedly.

“Yeah…”

“Is he staying for dinner?”

“No, we just… just got cupcakes!” Phil said suddenly, holding up his cupcake bag. “But his parents want him home now, so he’ll be going…”

“Is this your dog?” his mother asked curiously, addressing Dan.

“Yeah. His seeing eyes dog,” Phil said warily, responding for Dan. Suddenly his mother glared at him.

“You’d better be driving…”

“Dan,” Phil supplied, knowing his mother was waiting for a name.

“You’d _better_  be driving Dan home,” she said threateningly. “Where are your manners?”

“Oh no, Mrs. Lester,” Dan interrupted suddenly. “No, I’ll be fine—”

“Nonsense! Phil can drive you home, he’s a great driver! You’ll be perfectly safe!”

And then she was ushering them out the door, and Phil was grumbling under his breath, cursing his stupid mother. They weren’t even friends! They were the opposite of friends! Phil had tripped Dan and taunted him and threatened him! And Dan had thrown a book at him! How the hell had Phil gotten himself in this situation?

Phil opened the passenger-side door for Dan, who warily got into the car. Suki sat in the small foot-space before him, and Dan immediately buried his hands in her fur, likely looking for comfort. Phil closed the door behind him and then went around the car, where he seated himself and turned on the ignition. He saw Dan stiffen at the sound of the car, and he sat so still he was practically holding his breath as Phil backed out of the driveway.

“My mum wasn’t lying you know, I _am_  a good driver. I won’t kill you,” Phil said with an unappreciated eye roll, because it went unseen.

“I hate cars,” Dan muttered in response, but didn’t elaborate. Suki rested her head on his knee comfortingly.

The car ride was silent, and Phil sighed as he pulled out of his neighborhood. “Where do you live?” he asked, and Dan gave him instructions on how to get there from the cupcake shop. After that the drive was silent again, until Dan spoke up.

“Why did you help me?” he asked. Phil scoffed.

“I would’ve helped _anyone_. I wasn’t just going to watch you get pummeled to death,” he explained. “And this doesn’t mean we’re friends or anything. It’s true that I wouldn’t have been mean to you if I’d known about your… disability, but your friend Carrie gets on my nerves.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone like you anyway,” Dan muttered darkly. Phil didn’t feel all too bothered by this, and he shrugged, which also went unappreciated by anyone other than him.

“That’s nice,” Phil said instead.

“And I’m glad my book hit you.”

“It _grazed_  me,” Phil corrected, and Dan laughed suddenly, as if it’d been shocked out of him.

Soon he pulled up in front of Dan’s house, which he informed the blind boy about, and Dan was getting out of his car, seeming immensely relieved to find himself on solid ground.

“Thanks,” he said reluctantly.

Phil grunted in reply before pulling away, watching as Suki led Dan to the front door. He unwrapped his cupcake on the drive home, and cursed Dan at the fact that it now resembled a pancake.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’ll buy you breakfast,” Carrie persuaded, while Dan walked stubbornly beside her car. She was pulled up to the very edge of the street while Dan walked on the sidewalk. He could hear her car inching along, though he had no desire to get in it.

“I already ate,” Dan replied, which was a lie. He’d woken up late that morning, and though his mother had remembered to pack him a lunch this time, he’d forgotten to eat breakfast.

“Then I’ll buy you a coffee. Just— come on! Get in the car,” she begged, and Dan stubbornly tightened his hand around his walking stick, and resolutely tapped his way forward another step.

“I don’t want to ride in a car today. Okay?” Dan said, and he avoided looking at her while he said it, afraid that she might be able to read his expression. Carrie sighed loudly from the car.

“What if you’re abducted on the walk to school and your parents blame me, your one and only friend?”

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes. Go get your breakfast and we’ll talk during first period,” Dan said. Carrie groaned loudly.

“Fine! You’d better show up in one piece.” And with that, he heard the sound of her car finally returning to the middle of the road and driving away.

The truth was, Dan had no interest in getting into another car, not after the incident with Phil Lester the day before. It’d been terrifying, having to put his trust into someone that he knew didn’t like him, someone who he most certainly didn’t trust. And he didn’t care whether Phil was a good driver or not, he didn’t care whether _anyone_  was a good driver, he just hated getting in cars. He’d been sat there, hands clenched so tightly around Suki’s leash that he’d been able to feel the indents they left behind for hours afterward, begging to be home already.

Although, he had to admit, there was something intriguing about being alone with Phil in a small space. It was true that Carrie was his only friend, and so he was only ever alone with her. Being alone with a boy felt much different, and despite his intense fear and need to get home, he’d felt slightly self conscious. In that moment he’d wondered if his hair looked okay, which was so _not_  okay. He’d worked hard to ditch his feelings of self consciousness, and he did not want them back. He was already hyper aware of the fact that he could no longer pick up on subtle things in conversation, like the expressions people made or how they stood or where they looked when they talked to you. He was already at a disadvantage, and he didn’t need any more.

Dan stepped over a sudden ledge in the sidewalk, discovered because of his cane, and continued on. Normally, if he were riding the bus or doing another activity where he was simply waiting, Dan liked to listen to music. He could never wear earbuds in public anymore though, because it took one of the few senses he had left away for him. He needed to be able to hear to help him understand his surroundings, though listening to music would be more fun.

It was a good thing Dan wasn’t listening to music, however, because just then the unmistakable sound of a car slowing to a crawl on the side of the road met his ears. He listened as the window rolled down, shaking his head in annoyance.

“The answer’s still no, Carrie! Just go get your breakfast, Jesus,” Dan said, turning his head slightly towards the car to ensure that she heard him.

“Actually, um— it’s—“

“ _Phil_?” Dan interrupted incredulously, stumbling slightly as he forgot to use his cane in his surprise.

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing?”

“I was just— I was wondering— er, maybe you should get in my car?” Phil stuttered, and Dan came to a complete stop in surprise.

“What?”

“It’s just, those guys yesterday! What if they’re around today? Is it really safe for you to be walking all the way to school?”

“I thought we’d established that we had no interest in being friends,” Dan stated, completely ignoring Phil’s worries. In all honesty, Dan was a bit worried about them, but he wasn’t about to admit that. He hadn’t told Carrie about anything that had happened the day before, partly because he didn’t want her to worry, and partly because he knew she would force him into her car if she knew what had happened. It wasn’t too odd of an occurrence for Dan to be chased by Kyle and his friends. They were bullies, plain and simple, and had been even before Dan had been blind. The fact that he’d lost his eyesight and had a much harder time getting away from them now didn’t seem to put them off their game.

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Phil hastily assured. “But I assumed that your friend was going to drive you to school so you’d be safe. Someone’s gotta do it, right?”

“I’m doing it,” Dan bit out, before he starting walking again, at a faster pace.

“How could your friend hear that you’d been chased by those… those bullies—” Dan snorted at the irony. A bully mad at other bullies for bullying. “—and not insist that she drive you?”

“That wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence,” Dan shrugged. “It’s nothing for her to get worked up about.” Dan just wanted Phil to drive away, and he didn’t want to admit that they were the only two, besides Kyle and his friends, who knew about what had happened yesterday.

“If you don’t get in my car willingly I’ll be forced to kidnap you and drive you safely to school,” Phil said gravely. Dan scoffed.

“Right.”

Suddenly, Dan heard the car stop, and the gear shift being thrown into park, and Dan’s mouth dropped open. “He wouldn’t,” Dan muttered, mostly to himself. The car door slammed, and footsteps circled around the car, coming straight towards Dan.

Dan tapped his cane in front of him and speed walked away, not even going to chance running without Suki. “Don’t you dare touch me,” Dan warned.

Phil’s footsteps continued towards him at exactly the same pace, informing Dan that Phil had not heeded his warning.

The next thing Dan knew, there were two arms wrapped around his waist, and he was being pulled backwards. “No!” Dan shouted.

Phil simply tightened his grip and lifted him slightly off the ground (Dan had a sudden immense need to have his eyesight back. He needed to see Phil. Was he buff? Did he have giant muscles? Or was Dan just skinnier than he remembered?) and Dan began to panic. He knew for certain that he didn’t want to get in that car. Not again.

“Stop!” Dan begged, and he reached out his hand, unsurprised to have it hit the metal of the car. “I’m not getting in there!”

“Why?”

“I hate cars! I hate not knowing where I’m going! I hate having to put my trust into the driver! I’m not getting in your car,” Dan panted, still struggling against Phil’s slackened grip.

“I’ll narrate the entire drive,” Phil suggested. “Ever turn, every stop sign.”

Dan stopped struggling. That was what he would normally demanded from drivers, and it sounded pretty reasonable to him. Plus, Dan was pretty sure he’d be late if he had to walk the rest of the way to school. “Fine.”

Phil let him get into the car on his own, and Dan immediately shoved his hands under his legs, letting his nails dig into his palms. “You owe me a cupcake,” Phil informed as he restarted the engine.

“What?”

“Mine was ruined after running through that forest,” he said, and Dan scoffed.

“I’m not buying you a cupcake.”

“We’ll see.”

Phil was a perfectly good driver, and he informed Dan of every little move the car made. He’d even explained when he was going around a pothole. When they arrived at school, Dan got out of the car, intending to hurry to his first class and forget that Phil had ever happened. This became impossible the exact second he stepped out of the car, however.

“Dan Howell!” shrieked a familiar voice, and Dan’s unseeing eyes widened. He debated trying to run away, before deciding it was useless.

Phil got out of the car as well, and sighed in annoyance. “It’s your bitch friend,” he informed.

“Don’t call her that.”

The next second a familiar, vice-like grip had attached itself to Dan’s arm, who gasped in surprise. “You’re hurting me!” he protested.

“You’re an asshole,” Carrie stated, ignoring him.

“Losing circulation,” Dan sing-songed.

“Worst friend ever,” Carrie imitated. “You refuse to get in my car and then get into his?”

“Maybe he just likes me better,” Phil said from directly beside Dan, who hadn’t realized that he was still there.

“Don’t count on it,” Dan replied.

“Besides, you’re the bad friend,” Phil stated. Dan assumed that he was looking at Carrie when he said this, because the next second she exclaimed: “What?”

“Yeah! How could you let your best friend walk to school knowing what he went through yesterday?” Phil demanded.

Recognizing a conflict about to happen, one that was likely to be blamed on him for not telling Carrie, Dan laughed uneasily. “Anyway, I need to get to class. I’ll see you lat—”

“What happened yesterday, Dan?” Carrie interrupted. There was an uneasy silence that lasted for a few seconds.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Phil said, in a voice that sounded both taunting and degrading at the same time.

“Why does he know when I don’t?” Carrie said.

“He was there. It’s really not a big deal,” Dan said with a shrug. He had a feeling that if he could see, Carrie would be glaring daggers at him.

“What happened?”

“Your blind best friend got chased by terrifying giant men,” Phil informed sagely. Carrie paused.

“Kyle?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Dan!”

“ _What_?”

And then, with an exasperated groan, Carrie marched away.

“I’ll never understand girls,” Dan sighed. No one replied, and it took him a few moments to realize that Phil had left too.

—

Dan’s cheek was rested firmly in the palm of his hand, and he was very close to falling asleep. He could hear his teacher droning on, and despite the fact that he should be paying attention, and that he was no longer sure if Carrie would share her notes, he let his eyes drift closed.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept for, only that there was a very loud, very annoyed groan emitting from all around the classroom. Dan sat up abruptly, trying to understand what was going on.

“There’s nothing you can do to change it,” Mr. Halver informed gravely, to yet more groans of annoyance. “Okay then, Ashley and Brian,” he called. Mr. Halver continued to call names, in pairs of two like the first. Dan assumed that they were to be working on something together, although he didn’t know what.

“Phil and Dan,” Mr. Halver announced. Normally, after he called a name there was the sound of footsteps throughout the room, as each person got up to find a place to convene together. This time, however, it was met with only silence.

“Are you serious?” Phil said finally, breaking the silence.

“Why wouldn’t I be, Mr. Lester?” he teacher replied.

“He’s _blind_ ,” Phil announced, to startled gasps around the room. “He won’t be able to do any of the work.”

“You can’t _say_  that,” an offended sounding girl said.

“I can do some of the work,” Dan said with a shrug. He had a feeling that heads were turned to him now, which normally he would’ve hated, but he couldn’t even prove that they were looking at him anyway.

“Like what? Which part of this project will you be able to do?” Phil demanded.

Ah, so they were doing a project together. Good to know. If Dan had actually been listening, or even awake, then he’d be able to respond to Phil’s question. As it was, he hadn’t been doing either, and so he didn’t know what the project was, much less which parts of it he could actually accomplish.

“Lots of it,” Dan responded smartly.

“Go sit with your partner, Mr. Lester,” Mr. Halver commanded, and Phil sighed before the sound of him shuffling over to Dan met Dan’s ears.

Soon the class was filled with noise again, of students talking to each other and planning their projects. Dan could no longer hear Phil’s footsteps, but he assumed that he was still coming towards him.

“So what should we do?” Phil asked, and Dan’s head snapped forward. The question had come from directly in front of Dan, but there was a desk in front of him.

“Are you on the desk?” he asked, ignoring Phil’s question.

“Yeah. But what are we doing for our project?”

Dan bit his lip. “I don’t really know what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“That’s because we’re supposed to come up with the idea.”

“But I was asleep when he was explaining what we were supposed to do,” Dan protested, and Phil made an exasperated noise.

“We have to come up with a topic that has something to do with both of our lives, and we have to write an essay about it and make a poster.”

“I can write the essay!” Dan said triumphantly.

“But we don’t even know our topic yet!”

“Yeah, but I can write the essay,” Dan repeated. “you asked me what I could do for this project,” he elaborated.

“That’s the easy part,” Phil complained. “And now I have to make the _whole_  poster!”

“I can be there while you make the poster,” Dan said with a shrug. “I’m sure my sense of artistic style will be a really big help.”

For the rest of the class they tried to come up with a similarity in their life that they could make their project about.

“You have a dog and I want a dog,” Phil suggested. He was currently laying across the two desks in front of Dan, who knew because he’d heard him lay down, and then asked to make sure.

“I have been bullied and you are a bully,” Dan replied, and Phil scoffed.

“I’m not a bully.”

“Pushes down innocent, unseeing person. Insults said person’s friend. Is not nice in general,” Dan listed in a joking tone, holding up his fingers as he did. He and Phil actually hadn’t bickered much throughout the class, and if he didn’t insist on being so mean to Carrie at every given opportunity, as well as being stubborn and rude, Dan figured they could’ve been friends.

“If you think _I’m_ a bully you should really get to know the people at my last school,” Phil snarled. Dan slouched back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

“Friends of yours?” he questioned. Phil was silent for a long time, so long that Dan begun to wonder if he’d somehow gotten up and left without him noticing.

“Something like that,” Phil finally answered, his voice gruff and quiet.

“We’re going to have to work on this outside of class,” Dan sighed, and Phil made a noise of agreement.

“You can come to my house this weekend. Until then we have to come up with something we have in common.”

“What if I don’t want to go to your house?” Dan asked stubbornly.

“Would you really rather I go to yours?”

Dan imagined Phil Lester in his house, seeing his room and his parents and all the oddly set up things to help him navigate and know where things were.

“No.”

“It’s settled then,” Phil said lazily, and Dan heard him shuffling around on the table.

Dan slouched even further in his seat, going as far as to contemplate putting earbuds in, when someone came over to talk to Phil.

“Hey,” they said.

“Pj,” Phil acknowledged.

“Sucks that we didn’t get partnered together,” the newcomer, Pj, said.

“Or with me,” said a new voice, a girl.

“I’m glad I didn’t get paired with you, Louise,” Pj said, to which Louise made an indignant noise. “What? You never do your fair share of the work!”

“Seems like I’d be just as good off with Louise then,” Phil said darkly.

“I’m blind, not deaf,” Dan interrupted.

“It’s true!” Phil argued. “I’m gonna have to put together the entire poster _and_  help you write the essay, because half of it is about me!”

“I know!” Dan said sarcastically, as if presenting a great idea. “We’ll stab out your eyes, and then we can write our essay about how we’re both blind, and get out of the poster altogether!”

There was a stunned silence from Phil’s friends, and Dan just slouched back into his chair again, folding his arms even tighter across his chest. “Or you could just stop being a dick and get over the fact that you’ll have to make a poster.”  
  
—

Dan felt uneasy, sitting in the library alone. Usually he and Carrie ate their together, and she was never late, which led him to believe that she really was mad at him. And just because he hadn’t told her about Kyle straight away! She could be ridiculous sometimes, it wasn’t as if it was expected of Dan to share every single aspect of his life with her. Maybe there were some things he wanted to keep private!

He heard a shoe scuff on the floor not to far away from where he was, and his head instantly turned to face that direction.

“Carrie?” he said hopefully.

“Who else?” she replied, and Dan sighed in relief.

“I thought you weren’t going to come.”

“I’m not  _that_  mean,” she said, and she slid up onto the table beside him, her paper lunch bag crinkling as she retrieved her food.

Dan shifted so that he could rest his head on her thigh, trusting her to not let crumbs fall onto his face. “You’ll never guess what horrible thing happened to me last block.”

“You got in a car crash and lost your sense of taste?”

“Close. I got partnered with Phil Lester on a project,” he said, and Carrie snorted into her sandwich.

“Serves you right! That’s what happens when you ditch your best friend,” she said smugly.

“Yeah? Well I’m gonna need all the moral support I can get over the next few days,” Dan informed, and Carrie ran her fingers through his hair comfortingly.

“When do you not?” she laughed.


	5. Chapter 5

"What do you mean ‘you haven’t picked one yet’?” Carrie demanded incredulously. Phil was standing behind a bookshelf, spying on Dan and his bitch-friend. Well, maybe she wasn’t to Dan, but to Phil she was.

“We just… haven’t. We don’t like each other’s ideas.”

“So, you keep coming up with ideas and he keeps rejecting them?” Carrie concluded, and Dan made a sound of acknowledgment, but otherwise didn’t answer. “He’s such a dick.”

Phil glowered at her between two books, wishing that she’d feel the heat of his gaze in the form of a particularly vicious stomach ache, or something. Phil was not a dick, he just had different opinions than Dan, as well as an image to set for himself. If that meant stating loudly and often that Dan had horrible ideas, then so be it.

Just the day before, Dan had made a suggestion of doing their report on food that they both liked. Phil had replied with “that idea is almost as bad as your hair.” The class had immediately fell silent, and one person had said “dude” in a reprimanding tone, but Phil hadn’t cared. Or at least, he’d made sure to look like he hadn’t cared. He was aware that that might’ve been a step too far over the line, however.

Phil hadn’t apologized, but he also hadn’t said any other mean things to Dan during the class, and had even suggested a few lousy ideas of his own (if only to make Dan feel better about his shoddy job of coming up with suggestions). After class, Phil had thrown his hood up over his head and slouched out of the classroom. It was as he was walking through the halls, on his way to his next class, that he passed by Dan, conversing quietly with Carrie, both of them leaned up against the lockers.

“Can you fix my hair?” Dan had murmured, his head tilted downward, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Your hair looks fine Dan, what made you think it wasn’t?”

“Just a feeling.”

A pang had shot through Phil’s heart at that, as well as more than a little guilt, and he’d promised himself to never insult Dan’s appearance again. Still, it was Carrie’s fault that she insisted on lying to him. Phil couldn’t deny that Dan’s apparent attempt at straightening his hair was done wretchedly, with wavy clumps of it sticking out like a sore thumb here and there.

“He’s come up with some ideas too,” Dan half-heartedly said now, and Phil wondered why he even bothered to come to his defense anyway. It wasn’t like Phil wanted Dan to be annoyed with him, he just wouldn’t be surprised if he was.

“Like what?” Carrie insisted, and she laid down on the table, throwing her feet over Dan’s lap. Dan jumped a little at this, likely in surprise, before realizing what had happened and resting his elbows on her calves, his chin in his hands. Phil sent a telepathic message to the librarian, stating that a curly-haired bitch was defiling the library tables with her body and likely dandruff-covered head.

“There was this one about dogs…”

“Dan, you need to stand up to him,” Carrie said crossly, and Dan huffed, his body deflating.

“No.”

“But, Dan—”

“I told you. No.”

“Why not?” Carrie said in exasperation, and Dan maneuvered his face so it was his cheek rested in his hand instead of his chin, and by doing so, his face was pointed directly at Phil. It was almost as if they were making eye contact, although that was impossible, seeing as how Dan was blind, but it still felt disconcerting, know that if Dan’s eyes worked he’d know that he was being spied upon.

“Because I don’t care.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you care?”

Dan answered with a shrug. Phil resisted the urge to sigh in annoyance. This spying session wasn’t going how he’d expected it to go. He’d been hoping to get an inside on Dan’s thoughts, to possibly hear what ideas he might have for their project and pretend like he came up with them himself. Instead, he’d only managed to hear Dan and his jerk friend complain about him, most of the things they were saying untrue on top of everything else.

“Because all bullies ever want is a rise out of you. If I continue to ignore it, he’ll eventually leave me alone,” Dan said reassuringly, and Phil bit his tongue to prevent himself from insisting that he was _not_ a bully. It was annoying to be called one, especially when Phil most certainly wasn’t. He _knew_ what bullies were like, and they were not like him.

Bullies said biting, scathing words. Bullies made you feel insecure and uncomfortable in your own body. Bullies made you dread coming to school, made you have to wake up hours early just so you’d be able to convince yourself to get out of bed, to go to the bus stop. Bullies made you skip school, made you hide in your bed away from the world, made you lie to your parents and insist you’re sick for the third time that month. Bullies hurt you, punched you and kicked you and made you feel bad and dirty and disgusting just for being gay. Bullies hurt you for enjoyment.

Phil was not a bully.

Phil was a victim, and sometimes victims had to assert themselves over their peers, had to be a little bit mean to assume dominance, to show that they weren’t one to be messed with. Not anymore. Phil was not a bully. He didn’t do to Dan what had been done to him. He was just getting by, and if he needed to use Dan as a crutch to do so, then fine. Phil would do whatever it took to avoid being bullied again. And if he managed to hurt someone along the way, then at least he wasn’t enjoying it. Because bullies, they enjoyed it.

“That’s just the bullshit they tell you when you’re seven so that you’ll feel like you have something you can do if you’re getting bullied. That applies to playground bullies. Phil Lester is not going to leave you alone if you just ignore him. You need to put him in his place.”

Dan sat there silently, seemingly contemplating these words. “But I don’t want to confront him,” he said finally, with a small shrug.

“ _Dan_.”

“ _Carrie_.”

“You’re so annoying sometimes,” Carrie groaned, and she took a crisp out of the plastic bag that was resting on her stomach and threw it at Dan, hitting him in the cheek.

Dan jerked in surprise before turning to glare at Carrie. “Bitch!” he growled.

Carrie laughed and threw another one, this one hitting him on the chin and landing in his lap. Phil watched as Dan patted around for it, eventually finding it and hurriedly pelting it at Carrie.

“Missed me,” she quipped, despite the fact that it had hit her in the arm.

“Well _you_ have the advantage of eyesight.”

Carrie stuck out her tongue, which was ineffective on Dan, so she blew a raspberry to get her point across.

Suddenly, a hand clenched around Phil’s forearm, and it was only thanks to his super manly prowess that he didn’t scream because of it. He whipped around, eyes wide, heart thundering, to see Pj, accompanied by Jack and Dean.

“Why’re we spying?” Dean questioned in a whisper, before inching forward and peering between the books. Dan and Carrie were still joking around, and Dan had apparently succeeded in shoving a chip into her sock.

“To see if Dan has any good project ideas,” Phil answered with a shrug.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Pj questions, and Phil stares at him, momentarily wondering _why_ he didn’t just do that, before remembering that he wanted to steal whatever idea he heard. And fuck if Phil didn’t get a sadistic sort of pleasure in hearing himself talked about.

“Because I’m gonna steal his idea.”

“For your own project?”

“I’m gonna say I came up with it first.”

“I think that might be a waste of time,” Jack replied gently. “Does it really matter who came up with it? You’re the only two who haven’t started your project yet, you know.”

“I know that!” Phil insisted. “But we can’t do our project on something stupid. I’m not gonna present something that’s gonna embarrass me.”

“My partner and I are doing ours on our mutual fear of bugs,” Pj stated, and Phil rolled his eyes at him.

“Well my project isn’t going to be about bugs.”

“Of course not! Then there’d be two bug presentations in one class. Mr. Halver would think you copied us.”

Phil opened his mouth to retort, when he heard a quiet, “what was that?” from behind the shelf, and then Phil and his friends were scurrying away, undetected.

—

“I’ve got it,” Phil announced on Friday afternoon. Dan was sat at his desk, slouching in his seat and chewing on the end of his pencil. “And stop chewing on your pencil. It’s disgusting.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Dan replied around a mouthful of eraser. Phil crinkled his nose.

“It looks unappealing.”

“Not like I have to see it,” the blind boy countered, and Phil sighed.

“Whatever. Do you want to hear what we’re doing for our project or not?”

Dan looked as if he were about to argue, to question why Phil had rejected all of his ideas but expected him to accept this one, but the fight apparently drained out of him, and he raised his head, face turned to approximately where Phil was standing. “Sure.”

“Cars,” Phil announced.

“What?” Dan said, a little too quickly, his face paling slightly.

“Well for you we could write about how you don’t like cars, don’t like not knowing where you’re going. And for me we could say that I crashed a car. I haven’t actually, but I did bump into a trashcan once. And Mr. Halver won’t know, anyway.”

“Okay,” Dan said slowly. Phil plowed on, trying to convince him that it was a good idea, despite acting like he wasn’t going to take Dan’s opinion into account.

“We could mention things about car safety, like wearing your seatbelt and following the rules of the road to avoid getting in accidents.”

Dan paled even more at the mention of accidents, which Phil put down to his fear of cars. Not being able to see and just sitting in a moving vehicle, not knowing or seeing the things around you, having no way of knowing where you are or if you’re even safe must be terrifying.

“Good idea,” Dan said quietly, and Phil nodded, before realizing that it had gone unnoticed. Obviously.

“Thanks.”

The rest of the class passed relatively quickly, with Dan and Phil coming up with ideas for their project, Dan working hesitantly around the idea of cars and accidents.

“So what are you saying for the essay?” Phil inquired. He was sitting in the desk to Dan’s right, and Dan’s fingers were poised over his little braille laptop, his unseeing eyes intent on the screen. Although maybe it was just that his expression was intent.

“What you said, I guess,” Dan admitted, tugging his bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth. Phil watched as Dan’s fingers flew across his keyboard, words appearing on the screen, explaining how Dan doesn’t like to not know where he’s going. He also weaved an incredible tale about how Phil got into a tragic car accident, one that turned out not to be his fault, like Phil had suggested, but his older cousin’s. In the story Phil had been terrified and had avoided going into a car for two weeks afterward, and Dan’s so good at creating stories that Phil wonders why he was so crappy at coming up with a project idea in the first place.

Soon enough the bell rings, and Phil scoops up his bag, ready to leave the school. “Ready?” he asks, and Dan nods shakily, taking up his own bag.

They’d already agreed to have Dan come over to Phil’s house to finish their project, having known they wouldn’t be able to finish it in class with all the procrastinating they’d done.

Dan took out his cane, unfolding it to let it become as long as it was supposed to be, and he lowered it to the ground, swung it from one side to the other. The cane hit Phil in the foot, and Phil stepped back, giving Dan some space. The swinging cane came over and hit him in the foot a second time, and after that, Phil glowered a particularly annoyed glower at a boy who will never see it. The cane swung a third time, harder this time, and smacked Phil in the foot.

“Stop that,” he commanded, and Dan quirked a smile at him.

“Stop trying to navigate?” he asked simply, as they walked side by side down the hall, Dan’s cane smacking resolutely against Phil’s feet with every sweep it did of the floor.

“Stop smacking me with your cane,” Phil amended, and Dan pursed his lips and hummed. His cane continued to smack Phil.

“Do you _want_ me to break your cane?” Phil threatened, and Dan responded to that with a particularly swift _thump_.

“You would break a blind man’s cane? Desperate.”

Phil groaned, and shoved Dan’s shoulder, who stumbled into the lockers lining the wall with a gasp. Immediately, Phil opened his mouth to apologize, before snapping it shut again. Instead he reached forward and grabbed Dan’s arm, helping him to regain his balance.

Dan stopped smacking him with his cane after that, and distantly, Phil wondered if Dan thought he’d been threatening him by shoving him.

They were almost at Phil’s car, which Dan had already agreed to ride in. Phil had promised to narrate the drive again, and Dan had swallowed what looked like fear and nodded.

“We’re here,” Phil announced as he opened the car door for Dan, who looked surprised at the kindness.

Dan got into the car easily enough, and he sat there with his cane gripped tightly in his hands for the endurance of the ride. Phil made sure to tell Dan of every turn, to alert him to why they were stopping and starting when they did.

When they got to Phil’s house, they both climbed out of the car, and Phil directed Dan to the house that he had been in once before. It was as they were climbing up the steps to the porch when the front door swung open, revealing Phil’s mother.

“Phil you’re home! And you’ve brought Dan as well! I was wondering when I was going to see him again,” she said brightly, and Dan murmured a greeting.

“We’re just gonna be in my room,” Phil said in response to all of this, and unthinkingly, he placed his hand on Dan’s back, guiding him to the stairs.

“Tell me if you get hungry,” his mum called after them as they climbed up the stairs, Phil’s hand returning to his own side.

Once in Phil’s room, they both pulled out whatever supplies they needed, for Dan this included his laptop. He immediately began writing again, and Phil began planning their poster, designing where they would put their essay, and where they would put their car safety and rules of the road texts, along with pictures and graphs and things.

“OUR. TOPIC. IS. CAR. SAFETY,” a terrifying robotic voice suddenly blurted out, and Dan’s eyes widened, his face exploding in redness.

“WE. CHOSE. CAR. SAFETY. BECAUSE. WE. BOTH—” the voice cut off as Dan slammed his laptop closed.

“Sorry!” he squeaked immediately, the redness in his face refusing to fade.

“That was horrifying,” Phil commented.

“It’s the reading feature,” Dan sighed. “It’s monotone and horrible but it’s the only way I can read over things I’ve written. I thought my headphones were in when I started it,” he explained, and held up his earbuds as proof.

“I can read over it if you want?” Phil offered, and somewhere in the back of his mind he was shouting at himself to take it back, because he already had to do the entire poster by himself, and now he was offering to do some of Dan’s work too? What was wrong with him?

“No, that’s okay,” Dan answered (thankfully, that small voice added) and the shoved his ear buds into his ear, before feeling around for the jack in his computer, where he then shoved the end of the headphone’s cord.

Phil watched him, unbeknownst to Dan (although, Phil realized, Dan never knew when someone was looking at him) as he edited their essay. He had his knees pulled up to his chest, and occasionally he reached forward and typed a few things, before having the computer resume its reading to him. He was chewing on the side of his cheek too, Phil could see, and his fingers were playing with the ankle of his jeans, tugging at the hem.

Eventually Phil managed to get his mind back on track, and he continued working on their poster, trying to ignore the way Dan couldn’t seem to sit still, how he was always tapping or fidgeting. He also didn’t seem to like wearing earbuds, as he repeatedly reached up to take one or the other out, and eventually resigned to just wearing one.

When Dan was done writing the essay, he closed his laptop and pushed it to the side, scooting closer to where Phil was sitting. Phil didn’t know how Dan knew exactly where he was, but he figured it must’ve been some blind sixth sense, one that Dan had been honing for sixteen years.

“I can’t imagine being blind,” Phil said into the silence, immediately wondering why he had. “It’s amazing how you live your life, doing things that any seeing person does without a thought.”

Dan hummed in agreement.

“I’ve imagined trying to explain colors, but I just don’t know how you would do it. When you dream, it must be of like, sounds and smells right? It just seems crazy, that you’ve been blind your whole life.”

Dan made a noise, before he cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said quietly. “I’ve only been blind for about a year.”

Phil fell silent, a sudden pain stabbing through his chest. He imagined what it would be like, being able to see and being a normal kid, before suddenly having your eyesight ripped away from you forever. He imagined that it would be scary and horrible, that he would be sad beyond belief, unable to cope.

“ _What_?” he finally responded, aghast. “How did that happen?”

“Er— car crash.”

Phil gasped. “Is that why you hate cars so much?”

“It’s mostly the not knowing where I’m going thing,” Dan said with a shrug, his face pointed towards the floor. Phil suddenly felt guilty all over again for insulting Dan’s hair the other day. He wondered what Dan used to wear, used to make himself look like, before he’d lost his eyesight.

“What about—”

“I- I have to go,” Dan practically whispered, his voice sounding thin and quiet. He quickly gathered his things and shoved them into his bag, before leaping to his feet and stumbling to Phil’s bedroom door. His cane was held in a tight fist by his side, and it was almost like he was forgetting to use it.

“Dan, wait!” Phil called, jumping to his feet and following the blind boy of of his room. Dan was already at the stairs, and his hand was clutching at the banister as he quickly but carefully lowered himself down them.

Phil followed, much faster than Dan was going, obviously, and he said, “what’s wrong?” to his back. Dan didn’t respond, just finally touched his cane to the ground and turned to the front door, and briefly, Phil wondered how he was already so sure of how to get from Phil’s room to the front door. His steps were exact and even, and as Phil glanced at Dan’s face, he could’ve sworn that Dan’s lips were moving mutely, as if chanting, or counting or something.

“Oh, are you not staying for dinner, Dan?” Phil’s mother called from the living room, and Dan stilled, his lips sealing closed.

“My mum just called, she wants me home. I’m sorry,” Dan lied smoothly.

“No worries! Maybe next time, then?”

Dan made a pained sort of sound, which Phil’s mum didn’t seem to register, and nodded his head, before continuing on his way to the door. Phil followed him out of it, as Dan descended down the steep stairs of his front porch.

“Where are you going?” Phil demanded, barely registering how harsh his voice sounded.

“Home.”

“At least let me drive you,” Phil said, following Dan down the steps. He was already making his way down the driveway, and he didn’t even falter at Phil’s offer, didn’t even pretend to consider it.

“No,” he answered. “I know the way home.” Phil was mostly sure that this was a lie, which immediately confirmed itself as Dan turned to the right at the end of his driveway, walking determinedly down the dead-end street. He’d be able to walk for about three minutes before he found the street ending in a cul-de-sac.

Phil followed him at a distance, far enough away and quietly enough that Dan wouldn’t be able to hear him. Dan’s air of confidence seemed to fade the further he got from Phil’s house, apparently thinking that no one was watching him. Phil witnessed Dan’s realization that he’d arrived at the end of the street, watched as Dan’s mouth dropped open, as he turned on the spot, facing one direction and then another. There was a frown to Dan’s lips, and he looked confused and a little bit angry too.

Finally, Dan roughly shoved his hand through his hair, tugging harshly on the ends of the strands in annoyance, before he sat down on the curb. He shoved his face between his knees, clutched at the back of his neck with his hands, and just sat there. Phil stared in confusion, before he noticed the slight shaking of Dan’s body, the trembling in the hands that clutched his neck.

Sighing to himself, Phil began to walk forward, knowing that he was going to have to help.


	6. Chapter 6

Walking away from Phil’s house was probably one of the more idiotic things that Dan had done. He’d just been feeling stubborn and embarrassed and annoyed, tired of Phil asking him questions, angered that he kept telling the jerk so much about himself, and he’d been in no mood to get in a car. So he’d determinedly marched off, from one unknown place to another.

Even since he’d become blind, his mind had turned into a sort of mental map. He knew where everything was in his house. He knew how many steps from his room to the stairs, the stairs to the kitchen. He knew the exact place of the door handle on the doors, how far the door would swing open. He knew where every dish, spoon, and bag of sugar were located. He knew how many inches away from each other the salt and pepper sat on the table. He _knew_  his home, just like he knew his town.

Dan knew how to get from his house to the shopping center. He knew which shops were where, how many minutes down to the second it would take to get to them, and which shopkeepers were the nicest. He knew people from their voices, places from their smells, food from their tastes. He’d adapted to a life without eyesight, though that certainly didn’t mean that he didn’t miss it.

The fact of the matter was that Dan didn’t need to _see_  to _know_. He could get around, could find his way, could talk to people on his own. But to him, getting into a car was the same as getting onto a boat. He lost all sense of direction, had no hope of knowing where he was or how he’d gotten there.

Cars didn’t give a hint as to where he was via smell, and even if he rolled down the window, it was usually moving too fast for him to get a whiff of anything familiar. He couldn’t depend on them to arrive places at a regular time, not like he could when he was walking, because different people drove at different speeds, and traffic was unreliable, changing from day to day. Dan almost never had any idea where he was because of sound either, unless they happened to go over a gravel road or something, but even then it could be _any_  gravel road, and the entire situation was just so unsettling.

So cars were out. They were horrible, and if he could eliminate them from his life entirely, he would do so without blinking.

But he’d gotten into Phil’s car. And though Phil had dictated the car ride, had informed Dan of when he was turning and where, Dan couldn’t remember the drive word for word. Furthermore, he only knew how long it took to get from one turn to another by seconds, which didn’t convert easily to Dan’s footsteps. He was essentially lost, stuck in some place _near_  where he knew, where his mental map entailed every crack in the sidewalk, but not close enough. He didn’t know how to get there, and standing on Phil’s street felt just the same as standing in the middle of the desert. Foreign without any familiar landmarks.

Sure, he’d gotten to Phil’s house on foot before, but he could barely recall it at all. They’d been sprinting, one of Dan’s hands clutched in Phil’s and the other clutching Suki’s leash. He hadn’t been paying attention to where they were running, he’d just been running, trying to get away from Kyle and his friends.

Dan had no means of getting from an unknown location to a known one. He supposed that he could attempt to walk in one direction for long enough, but knowing his luck he’d walk in the exact opposite direction. He’d probably walk into the next country over.

Everything would be a whole lot easier if he simply had Suki. She had no problem guiding him, and even if she didn’t know exactly where they were either, she at least had a better chance of finding a way to a familiar place than he did. And even if she couldn’t find such a place, she could at least lead him, protect him. She would help him stick to sidewalks, help him not walk down dead end streets, help him not get hit by cars. She could lead him to a person who could actually help, or to a building where he could call for help.

And yes, Dan did have a phone. He _could_  call for help right then, but what would he tell his parents? “I have no idea where I am but I need you to pick me up from this place anyway”? The best his parents would be able to do is stay on the phone with him while he found his way to a store, which they could then get him from. And being on the phone with them would be more of a distraction than anything else, because being on the phone was like voluntarily giving up one of his senses. He wouldn't be able to hear his surroundings either, and he already needed to use every sense he had to navigate, seeing as he didn’t have his dog.

But still, Dan walked blindly (or more blindly than usual) in a random direction from Phil’s house, trying to stand tall and look confident, sure of himself. His hand was clenched tightly around the handle of his cane, which was more out of nerves and anxiety than anything else. His fingers felt sore from clutching it too hard, though he didn’t dare loosen his grip. Knowing his luck he’d drop it, and it would roll away and he’d have to scramble around the ground for it, which would be humiliating and demeaning. The blind boy’s guide—gone.

The further Dan got from Phil’s house, the more he felt uneasy and lost. His shoulders slumped in on himself, and he tapped his cane in front of him resolutely, walking but not knowing where he was going.

It was an abrupt realization when Dan’s cane hit grass, and he suddenly understood that Phil lived on a cul-de-sac, a neighborhood street that ended. He inhaled sharply, turning to the left and the right, trying to figure out what he should do.

He was berating himself mentally too, because Dan, who normally counted everything, the footsteps from the school library to the front entrance; the amount of students in his classes; the breaths it took for him to calm down when he was panicking; had forgotten to count. He’d been too busy thinking about how he didn’t know where he was, about how he was frightened and annoyed and angry, that he hadn’t counted his footsteps from Phil’s driveway to where he was now. Even if he wanted to turn back and plead with Phil for help, he’d first have to knock on every door along the way, because he had no idea where Phil was now, had no idea how long he’d been walking, how far.

Dan tugged none too gently on his hair in annoyance, before finally allowing himself to collapse on the ground. He sat on the curb of the sidewalk, his knees drawn up to his chest, his face pressed against them, hands clutching the back of his neck, and felt his body start shaking. It took him a moment to realize he was shaking because he was crying, small breaths escaping him in the form of gasps, as dreaded tears leaked out of his useless eyes. He hated crying, had hated it even before he’d lost his eyesight, but hated it even more now. He had no clue what he looked like when he was crying, had no chance of cleaning up his appearance once he’d finished. Crying made him feel weak and vulnerable, as if the situation wasn’t bad enough to even warrant tears.

Dan bit down on his lip, forcing himself to breathe through his nose. He wiped his eyes on his knees, breathing shakily and making himself get it under control. He refused to sit there and cry, feeling lost and scared and alone. No need to add embarrassment to the mix as well.

Suddenly, with the absence of his gasps filling his ears, he heard quiet footsteps approaching him. Dan’s entire body tensed, and he scrambled to his feet, clutching his cane with renewed vigor and crossing the street purposefully, as if he knew where he was going. He knew there weren’t any cars, as he couldn’t hear them, though his mother still would’ve reprimanded him for how quickly he’d crossed, saying that he should’ve waited longer, paid attention longer.

Perhaps Dan should’ve stayed to talk the person, to ask for help, but he couldn’t help feeling paranoid. What if it was Kyle, or one of his goons? What if it was someone who was willing to capture innocent, blind teens, willing to do anything to get a ransom? So Dan took off again, clumsily fumbling his phone from his pocket, just in case.

“C-Call m-um,” he said in the phone, and had to resist the urge to shout in annoyance when his tears started up again, his voice wobbling.

 _“What was that?”_  the phone responded in a flat robotic voice. Alarmingly, Dan could still hear footsteps, and it sounded as if they were following him. Panicking, he tried again.

“Call m-mum!” he said urgently.

_“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.”_

Dan let out a quiet moan of despair. He held down the button again, prepared to ask a third and possibly last time, when he stumbled forward—thanks to being distracted by his phone and not using his cane—and tripped. In a wild attempt to balance himself, he threw his arms out, his phone and cane escaping his grip as he did. His entire body filled to the brim with anxiety the second this happened, and he gasped loudly, an unwilling sob escaping his mouth.

Dan fell to his knees, scrambling along the ground, trying desperately to find his phone, his cane. He could still hear footsteps, closer now, and Dan decided that he’d make do with just one, either the phone or the cane, one or the other, he only needed one. The footsteps stopped suddenly, and despairingly, Dan realized that the person was right next to him. Dan pushed himself to his feet and warily backed away, even blinder than ever without his cane and phone.

“Leaving without your cane?” a familiar voice said, and relief (followed by annoyance) washed through his body. Dan dropped his head into his hands as his body shook, as sobs tried to escape him, before he finally managed to calm down.

“I thought you were Kyle or something,” Dan admitted. “I thought you were going to hurt me.”

“I didn’t realize you could hear me following you,” Phil responded sheepishly. “I was wondering why you crossed the street so suddenly.”

Dan just groaned low in his throat in response, still overwhelmed with relief that he wasn’t about to be murdered.

“You do realize this is a dead-end street, right?” Phil said, and Dan nodded.

“I know that _now_."

“Willing to let me drive you yet?”

“No.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to walk with you,” Phil said resignedly, before Dan heard him pick something of the ground, two somethings, and his belongings were being returned to his hand. “You’re lucky your phone didn’t break.”

And then Phil grabbed his wrist and started tugging him up the street. “It’s probably a twenty minute walk to your house.”

Dan yanked his hand away from Phil’s, using his cane to guide himself instead. He was glaring at the ground, full of resentment and grudging appreciation. He was thankful that Phil had cared enough to watch him walk away, knowing that he was walking to a dead end and didn’t actually know where he was going, but he was still annoyed that he’d even needed help in the first place.

He felt awkward and naked, almost, knowing that he’d told Phil so much about himself. He hadn’t planned on telling Phil that he’d only lost his eyesight a year ago. It felt terrible to feel pitied, and even though Phil was a giant jerk who was rude and mean half the time, he was just so _real_. Almost everyone else in Dan’s school was busy pitying him or avoiding him or trying to help him when he insisted he didn’t need it, and Phil was just so different compared to that. He’d been rude on his very first day of school, and although he’d seemed surprised to find out that Dan was blind, and had even admitted that he wouldn’t have acted the way he had if he’d known Dan was blind, he still kept it up. Dan supposed he shouldn’t like the fact that someone was being mean to him just because they were disregarding the fact that he was blind, he just liked to have his disability disregarded for once.

“So why’d you leave my house in such a hurry?” Phil questioned, yanking Dan out of his thoughts.

Dan didn’t necessarily want to answer though. So he didn’t.

“Dan?”

“What?”

“What happened? Why’d you get so upset?”

“I just— I don’t really like to talk about it. How I became blind, why I don’t like cars.” Dan explained. He didn’t elaborate on the fact that he especially didn’t like talking about it with Phil. Phil, who had before ignored Dan’s disability completely and treated him like he would’ve to anyone else.

“Oh.”

“Plus, I don’t even really know you that well,” Dan said. “How come sometimes you’re mean and other times you’re perfectly nice, like now?”

“I can be mean right now if you want,” Phil offered. The next second Dan was tripping over something, something that hadn’t been in his path a moment before. Dan was sure it was Phil’s foot.

Dan stumbled forward, hands flying out to catch himself, when he stopped suddenly. Phil’s arms were around his midsection, how he’d gotten behind Dan, Dan wasn’t sure. Dan huffed loudly.

“I did _not_  ask you to be mean,” Dan grumbled, still hanging in Phil’s grip. Phil pulled him upright, and Dan surreptitiously straightened his clothes.

“I don’t owe you an explanation, you know,” Phil said in response, before he started walking again, Dan hurrying after him. He debating smacking Phil with his cane a few times, though he’d already done that yesterday and been shoved for it.

“Well I didn’t owe you one either,” Dan said. Phil sighed.

“Look,” Phil said resignedly. “I’m not being mean to you right now because I don’t have to be. No one’s around.”

“Why would it matter if anyone was around?” Dan asked.

“Because,” Phil said flatly. Dan waited. “If others see that I’m not afraid to stand up for myself, that I’m someone not to be messed with, then they’ll stay away.”

“How would being mean to a blind person help to assert yourself,” Dan asked, annoyance coloring his voice. “If anything you’ll look weak, picking on someone who others consider weak.”

“Or maybe it shows that I don’t care who’s in my way,” Phil argued.

“Why are you so worried?” Dan asked suddenly. “Why are you trying to make yourself seem big and scary, anyway?”

“None of your business.”

“It became my business when you decided that I’d be the one you’d use to make yourself seem so tough,” Dan rebutted, though Phil just scoffed in response.

“I don’t intend to ever get pushed around,” he finally answered, though Dan felt like that wasn’t all of it. Still, he didn’t push him for more answers.

Soon Dan realized where they were, with the help of the familiar sounds of the hustle and bustle of the streets to the cheerful jingling of the shop’s bells and the customer’s chatter.

“I can get home from here,” Dan said quietly, which was true. It would take him approximately nine minutes and forty-seven seconds if the crosswalks were clear. It would probably take him a bit longer, however, seeing as he didn’t have Suki with him.

“And let you walk alone after seeing that little breakdown earlier? I don’t think so,” Phil laughed, and Dan felt his fingers on his back momentarily, urging him forwards. Dan shivered.

They walked through the shopping center, the occasional person calling out a greeting to him. He’d been friendly with many of the shop owners before he’d been blind, but he’d become acquainted with many more since then.

“Phil!” someone, a boy, called. Dan paused along with Phil, turning to face the newcomer. “Phil,” he said again, much closer this time, while sounding a bit breathless, which suggested he’d run to get to them.

“Hey Jack,” Phil greeted.

“Hey Phil,” he said, before adding, “Dan.”

Dan was shocked to have been addressed, he had no clue who Jack was, seeing as he didn’t have any classes with him. He assumed that he went to the same school as Dan, though Dan had (obviously) never seen him in the hallways.

“Hi,” Dan said quietly.

“Everyone’s just out getting dinner,” Jack said. “We saw you walking past and thought you might wanna join.”

Dan knew that this invitation was only extended to Phil, though he didn’t mind. He had no idea who Phil’s group of friends even were.

“Sounds fun!” Phil said enthusiastically. “But I’m walking Dan home…”

“Go with your friends,” Dan said abruptly. It was the perfect opportunity to get away from Phil, as well as being the only way he could arrive home alone. He didn’t want Phil to show up at his house, didn’t want him to have to for some reason talk to Dan’s mother.

“But—”

“I’m fine, just go,” Dan insisted, and then he turned around and marched away. He didn’t hear Phil following him, thankfully. He was beyond relieved to be back in familiar surroundings. Being lost, even for just those few minutes, had been absolutely terrifying. It was an experiment that he didn’t ever fancy repeating.

Dan was lost in his thoughts, as was per usual, when he was ripped unpleasantly out of them by the sound of a multitude of footsteps. He paused for a second, straining his ears, trying to figure out who they belonged to.

“Well look who it is,” a horribly familiar voice leered, and distantly, Dan almost wished that Phil was still with him.

“Leave me alone,” Dan said, much more boldly than he felt.

“Your girlfriend isn’t here,” Kyle taunted.

“She’s not—”

“And neither is your boyfriend.”

“ _He’s not_ —”

“Jared?” Kyle interrupted again, presumably talking to one of his friends.

“Hm?” a deep voice grunted, making Dan feel even more uneasy than he already was.

“The cane,” Kyle said simply.

Dan took a step back, gripping his cane tighter instinctively. He could hear someone approaching him, likely Jared, and he kept walking backwards. Panic clawed its way up his throat, and Dan finally spun around on the spot. He quickly tapped his cane in front of him, to the left and the right, and then he was running. He couldn’t move too quickly, as he was unsure of himself and his footsteps, and he still had to use his cane, knowing otherwise he was likely to trip.

He’d taken maybe ten steps when strong arms wrapped around his middle, feeling nothing like Phil’s had. Dan yelped, and then a hand was covering his mouth, and his cane was being yanked out of his hand. He struggled against his captor, but the arms around him were tight, and then he was being dragged away, off the sidewalk.

Dan struggled even harder, having no interest in getting lost again. He wasn’t strong enough though, he couldn’t escape; too weak, too skinny, too blind. Dan heard branches cracking underneath everyone’s feet, and he constantly tripped over loose rocks and branches. He knew he was being led into a forest, he just didn’t know why.

“Do you remember what’s down here, Danny?” Kyle said evilly. A hand was still pressed against Dan’s mouth, so it wasn’t like he could’ve responded even if he’d wanted to. Instead he made something close to a growling sound low in his throat.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Kyle continued. “You like to swim, don’t you?”

Dan paused in confusion, and was abruptly shoved forward, where he then stumbled over loose rocks and sticks.

“Ooh he’s eager!” one of the bullies crooned, making the others laugh. Dan was shoved forward again, his captor releasing him as he did. This time his feet splashed into some water. It was cold in the day’s chilly air.

“Wha—?”

“Don’t tell me your eyesight isn’t the only thing you lost in that crash,” Kyle taunted. “You _do_  remember the lake, don’t you?”

“Stop,” Dan said, holding out his hands. He didn’t know where his cane was, and his phone was in his pocket.

“What? Scared of the water?”

“Come on guys,” Dan pleaded. “My phone’s in my pocket.”

“Well we wouldn’t want that to get ruined, now would we?” Kyle responded.

Nothing happened for a few moments, though Dan didn’t dare let himself relax. He desperately wanted Kyle and his cronies to back off and leave him alone, but he didn’t expect it to happen, he wasn’t lucky enough.

“Then again, we wouldn’t want to send you home in wet clothes either, would we?”

Dan’s eyes widened, and he took a wobbly step forward in an attempt to get away, but the water was deeper here, reminding him that only the very edge of the lake had shallows, and that the rest of it was twenty or more feet deep. His feet sank into the muddy bottom, and he threw his hands out for balance.

Then everything happened so fast that Dan barely had a chance to react to it, much less defend himself.

No less than four pairs of hands were immediately tearing at his clothes, ripping his shirt over his head and his jeans down his legs (he prayed that his phone made it to dry land safely). Someone lifted him into the air, which was how the others removed his jeans and shoes, and Dan struggled weakly from where he was, though it was pointless. He barely had time to be thankful that he was still wearing his underwear when another pair of hands was wrapping around his legs, and more hands circling his chest and legs, carrying him forward deeper into the lake.

He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was protesting, begging them to set him down, to let him go, before he was thrown. It felt like he was in the air for a very long time before he hit the water. Then again, he _was_  being thrown by four people at once.

His body hit the water with a resounding _smack_  and tiny shockwaves radiated throughout his body. He was immediately immersed in the lake, and he choked in water on accident as he fought to break through the surface. It was particularly terrifying because he was unsure of how far below the surface he was, or if he was even swimming towards the surface or deeper into the lake. Panic overwhelmed him and he continued to thrash in the same direction, figuring that if he was close to the surface by now then he’d soon break free, and if he was swimming deeper than he was out of luck anyway, seeing as there wasn’t time to pick a new direction and swim that way. His lungs ached and his heart thundered in his chest, perhaps in realization that this could be the last time it beat at all, and it was simply a mix of adrenaline and fear that finally helped him break through to the surface, coughing up water and gasping for air.

He strained his ears even as he desperately sucked in oxygen, trying to determine if he was alone. Dan struck out in a random direction, hoping fervently that he was heading towards the bank and not further out in the lake.

“Help!” he called, because he fucking needed it, strewn in the middle of a lake and half-drowning.

“ _Help_!” he called again.

“Dan?” he heard faintly, in the distance. Dan called for help again, and then just fought to stay treading in the water.

“Dan what the _hell_?” Phil’s voice called from what sounded like half a lake away.

“Help,” Dan gasped weakly, struggling in the direction of Phil’s voice. His lungs burned from having gasped water into them, and his limbs ached from the struggle with Kyle and his furious swimming in the water.

He heard other voices along the lake as well, supposedly Phil’s friends, before he heard the tell-tale sounds of splashing. Soon Phil’s hand was latching on to his, guiding him in the right direction. Dan stood on shaky knees when they finally reached the shallow area, and he clung to Phil weakly.

“Did you just decide to go for a little swim?” Phil demanded sarcastically, and Dan shook his head. There were other people around him, asking what had happened and crowding around him. Dan stuck to Phil’s side, feeling cold and self-conscious and tired as hell. God, he was exhausted. And practically naked.

“What happened?” Phil asked gently, and for a second Dan wished that he could be this nice all the time, that he wouldn’t feel the need to put on the mean exterior that he wore to school.

“Kyle,” Dan muttered, still aware of all the people around him. He would guess that there were about four people other than Phil if he’d heard all their voices correctly.

“Do you see my cane?” he asked hopefully, looking away from Phil to direct the question to the whole group. “Or my… clothes?”

“You lost your cane?” a recognizable voice asked, and Dan realized it was Jack.

“It was taken,” Phil said angrily, and another influx of voices barraged Dan, asking him who’d taken it and why and how long ago.

“Does anyone see it?” Dan repeated, speaking over them. The next thing he knew, the group of friends were spreading out to search for his belongings, though Phil was sticking stoically by his side.

“His clothes aren’t anywhere…” Dan heard someone mutter. He recognized the voice to be Louise, who he also knew to be Phil’s friend.

Dan was shivering and his skin felt bruised, though he couldn’t remember when he’d gotten hit or on what.

“A phone!” shouted someone triumphantly. It sounded like Pj, who was in Dan and Phil’s english class.

“That was in my pants,” Dan spoke up, and his phone was soon returned to his hand.

“There’s nothing else here,” murmured the last voice, which Dan didn’t recognize.

Dan’s skin felt gritty, likely covered in mud and dirty water. He wished that he was home.

“Take this,” Jack said suddenly, shoving a bundle of cloth into Dan’s hands. “It’s my sweatshirt.”

Dan thanked the boy and dragged the sweatshirt over his head. It hung midway down his thighs, past his boxers, and it engulfed his arms, hanging past the tips of his fingers. “It’s a bit big on me, too,” Jack admitted.

“Let’s get you home,” Phil said after Dan was partially more clothed. Phil and his entourage of friends led Dan back through the forest. Dan’s feet ached from all the sharp objects littering the ground, though everyone was doing the best they could to clear the worst of it away from Dan’s path.

Phil’s arm was wrapped around Dan’s waist to lead him, which Dan didn’t particularly mind as he was having enough trouble standing as it was. He wasn’t sure what had caused Phil to have such a change of heart, though he didn’t doubt Phil would be back to his usual wretched self on Monday.

“Will you be okay from here?” Louise asked when they reached the sidewalk. Dan had thought she’d been speaking to him, but Phil answered instead.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, before he turned away from the rest of his friends and continued to lead Dan home.

“I can’t believe they would do that,” Phil said after a few minutes, his voice firm and angry. “They could’ve killed you.”

“I”m sure they weren’t trying to,” Dan shrugged uselessly. At the moment he couldn’t really force himself to care, he just wanted to get home and lay in his bed.

Phil huffed angrily but didn’t respond. His arm tightened around Dan minisculely, however.

When Dan finally arrived at his house, Phil followed him inside without asking. Dan stiffened slightly, but Phil didn’t seem to notice, intent on helping lead Dan around. Suki came running when the door opened, and Dan pet her absent-mindedly.

“Which way to your room?” Phil asked. Dan gently unwrapped Phil’s arm from around his waist and led him. His house was the most exact mind map he owned, and he could navigate almost the entire thing perfectly without any help. Occasionally he would trail his hands along the walls, but that was the extent of help he needed.

Once in his room, Dan gestured widely. Phil immediately invited himself to lay down on Dan’s bed.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Dan announced, hoping Phil would show himself out while he did. He felt awkward, having Phil in his house, seeing the things that Dan couldn’t see. There were many weird things laying about. Machines and oddly set up furniture and things. Dan knew that his pantry and countertops had masking tape outlining the place where everything belonged. This was mostly for his other family members, so that they’d remember to put things back in the place where Dan could find it.

He left his room and ventured to his bathroom, where he scrubbed at his skin with soap until he was convinced he was clean. He’d even managed to forget about Phil, and he walked back into his room with a towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of water falling down from his hair, raining onto his naked chest.

“Um, your mum invited me for dinner,” Phil said tentatively as Dan re-entered his room. Having forgot about Phil, he jumped slightly, clutching at his towel in surprise. Heat immediately flooded his cheeks.

“Of course she did,” Dan muttered, before yanking open his meticulously organized dresser and snatching himself some clothes, before scrambling to dress in the closet.


	7. Chapter 7

Phil watched as Dan returned from changing, his cheeks still occupied by a blush. He figured that it was pretty rude of him to invite himself into Dan’s house, as well as to invite himself onto Dan’s bed, and to accept his mother’s invitation for dinner, but it was too late now. He suspected that Dan was probably feeling anxious and awkward around him, having not expected for Phil to actually come into his home. Phil hadn’t been able to help it though. He’d been full of indignant rage at Kyle, and the only thing that seemed to simmer that fury was sticking around Dan, making sure the blind boy was okay and cared for.

“Did my mum tell you when dinner would be?” Dan asked, shoving his wet hair out of his eyes. It was curly, unlike the wavy attempts at straightness Phil usually saw it as.

“As soon as you were ready,” Phil admitted, and Dan nodded.

“Let’s go,” he said, and without waiting for a reply, exited the room. It was fascinating to watch the way Dan got around his own home. He didn’t seem to have a need for his cane or guide dog, and he moved with the practiced ease of someone comfortable in their environment. Occasionally Dan reached out to touch the walls, his fingers skimming across it. This happened more often around corners, when they turned from one hallway to the next. Dan didn’t even seem to need to do it either, as if it were more of a reflex or reassurance than anything else.

“Mum?” Dan called, as he led Phil down the stairs (well, not necessarily led, but walked and expected Phil to follow).

“Yes?” came Dan’s mum’s voice, a couple rooms away.

“What are we having?” Dan inquired, as he turned into the kitchen, Phil hot on his tail.

“Steak and salad.”

Dan glared, his mouth tightening as his eyebrows lowered. Phil wondered if he didn’t like steak.

“Why don’t you go take a seat at the table?” came a new voice, appearing from behind them. Phil guessed (correctly) that the man was Dan’s father, and he came up right behind Dan and placed his hands on Dan’s shoulders, immediately working them in a gruff massage.

Dan squeaked, squirming away. “That tickles!” he muttered, finally skittering out from underneath his dad’s hands.

“Hey, who’s this?” Dan’s dad asked, glancing at Phil and back to Dan.

“That’s Phil,” Dan answered. “This way,” he said absently to Phil, latching onto his sleeve and dragging him to another connecting room, which harbored a dining table surrounded by comfy looking chairs.

Phil sat directly beside Dan (“unless you want to be questioned endlessly by my parents”) and soon Dan’s parents were carrying in the dinner, a large bowl of salad, a plate of steaks, and a bowl of mashed potatoes. There were condiments too, like ketchup and barbecue sauce, and the table already had salt and pepper on it, each sitting in the middle of a taped circle. They were labeled too, saying **SALT** and **PEPPER** , though that was definitely for Dan’s parents’ benefit rather than his own.

“Okay,” Dan’s father began in a voice that sounded like an announcer’s. Phil noticed Dan slouching slightly in his seat, his face turning red in embarrassment. “ _Weeee’ve_ got! Steak at ten o’clock! Mashed potatoes at twelve and your mother’s delicious salad at two! Another night’s great meal, I’d say! By your right elbow is your knife and fork, and by your left elbow is our guest!”

Dan was slouching even lower in his seat, his nose almost in line with the table, looking mortified. “Thanks dad,” he muttered.

“You got it kiddo.”

“What would you like Phil?” Dan’s mum asked, holding serving utensils and looking expectant. Phil spluttered for a second before pointing towards the steak, which she happily served to him, herself, and Dan’s dad.

“Dan?” she said softly. Dan held out his hand, a slight glare on his face that looked challenging, and his mother sighed before placing the serving utensils in Dan’s hand. He tentatively reached out for the plate of steak, sliding his fingers along the table until he hit it. He then carefully loaded a steak onto his plate, and did the same with the salad and mashed potatoes.

“Want salt?” his mum asked, and Dan nodded silently. His mother picked up the salt to hand to him, just as Dan reached out, his hand finding empty air and masking tape.

“ _Mum_ ,” he said pointedly, and she apologized, placing it in his hand.

Dan then proceeded to sprinkle salt onto his plate, getting a majority of it in his salad. His mother pursed her lips but didn’t say anything, and Phil followed in her footsteps. He felt guilty as he watched Dan cutting his steak. He didn’t know why Dan was so adamant about doing everything himself, but he refused any help, and meticulously worked at cutting his steak into bite sized pieces. Suddenly, Phil realized why Dan might have been annoyed with the dinner choice tonight. Everything he was eating required the use of a fork or spoon instead of hands, and he didn’t have any real way of seeing where the bites of steak were located, or knowing whether he’d actually finished his meal or left a portion behind without realizing.

“So,” Dan’s father begin, smiling benevolently at Phil and Dan, despite Dan not being able to see it. “How was your day?”

Phil’s chewing slowed to a stop, and he glanced cautiously at Dan, who swallowed his bite of food and plastered a big fake smile on his face. “Great!” he said energetically.

“What’d you do?” Dan’s dad asked. He seemed like a genuinely nice and lovable person, though he didn’t seem to notice that Dan was lying to him.

“Phil and I worked on our project, we’re almost done,” Dan said, while trying to scoop some salad onto his fork. He shoved it into the mash potatoes, glared at his plate, and ended up eating the bite of mashed potato covered lettuce.

“What’s your project on?” Dan’s mum asked. Dan cleared his throat.

Phil could see him nervously messing the the hem of his shirt, before he quickly said, “cars,” and shoved a huge bite of mashed potato into his mouth. Dan’s parents looked at each other in alarm, before looking at their son with worry.

“Dan…”

“Hm?” Dan managed around his mouthful, which he seemed to be harboring in his mouth on purpose. Still without swallowing it, Dan shoveled more food into his mouth.

“Are you sure you’re okay doing this project on—”

“Mmhm!” Dan interrupted, smiling around his food.

“Swallow your dinner, dear,” his mother reprimanded. Dan swallowed with a painful sound gulp.

“So you’re sure—?”

“Yep.”

There was a brief pause, and then— “So how long have you two been friends?” Dan’s mum inquired. “We only ever see Carrie around here.”

Dan’s cheeks pinked slightly at the mention of his only friend, and Phil resisted the urge to scowl at the mention of the bitch. He still had bad memories of her, the way she’d yelled at Phil for being mean to Dan, as if he’d _known_  about Dan’s disability.

“Well I’ve only been here for about two weeks,” Phil explained, which didn’t really answer her question but came close enough.

“That’s wonderful that you two hit it off so well!”

“Wonderful,” Dan said dryly. Phil smiled politely.

“Well maybe you two can go into town together one day. You know Dan isn’t allowed into town without a friend and Suki, I’m sure it’ll be fun!” Dan’s mum suggested. Phil smiled and agreed that that sounded like a great idea, as if he didn’t know that Dan went into town regularly, apparently without his parents permission. Dan simply plastered on a fake angelic smile.

“Oh and you know, Dan, Kyle’s parents are having a little get together for lunch tomorrow,” his mum said cheerfully. They’ve invited the family, it’ll be fun!”

Dan’s smile threatened to drip from his face, but he stubbornly held onto it. Phil stiffened at the mention of Kyle, but no one noticed.

“Kyle?” Phil questioned with fake curiosity. Dan glared at him, his foot sneakily stomping down on Phil’s toes. Phil winced, but managed to ignore the pain.

“Yes, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hun. They’ve been family friends for years!”

“Oh, I think I know him,” Phil said conversationally.

“Really? How?”

“He’s in my history class. He helped me with my paper about the revolutions,” Phil lied. Mrs. Howell smiled.

“Maybe you could come to the Hun’s house with us tomorrow,” she said conspiratorially. Dan was grinding his toes steadily into the floor, and Phil reached over and pinched his leg sharply. Dan pressed harder in retaliation, and Phil squeezed harder. “It’d surely help to introduce you to the neighborhood!”

“That’d be great!” Phil agreed. Dan was now digging into his toes so hard that it was making his eyes hot with unshed tears. Dan shoved Phil’s hand away with a quiet gasp, and Phil kicked him in the ankle until he removed his foot.

“If you’re coming with us,” Mr. Howell began jovially, “why don’t you just sleepover?”

Dan’s mouth dropped open in shock, but he kicked Phil in the shin anyway, warning him to say no.

“I—uh…”

“It’ll be fun! Besides, Dan hasn’t had a sleepover in… maybe a year?” Mrs. Howell said pensively, and Dan’s face was so red he looked like he was about to explode. And then he did.

“That’s because no one would _want_  to have one with me!” Dan yelled. His fists slammed down on the table. He narrowly missed impaling his hand on his fork.

“Honey, what—?”

“I can’t _do_  anything with anyone! Not anymore!” Dan burst. “I’m boring, mum,” he said flatly, when his mother tried to protest.

“No, you’re not!” Mrs. Howell argued. Dan’s dad was just staring on in surprise, as if unsure of what had even caused this outburst. “Carrie loves to—”

“Well it’s not like you’d ever let her sleepover, even though I’m—” Dan broke off suddenly, his face flaming. He shoved his chair backward and stood.

“Even though you’re what?”

“N-not interested in her,” Dan mumbled. Phil got the feeling he’d been planning on saying something else. Then Dan was stomping out of the room, sure of his footsteps, moving just as confidently in anger as he did normally. As he disappeared into the kitchen however, there was the sudden, unmistakeable sound of someone bumping into something.

“Shit!” Phil heard quietly, before: “WHO LEFT THE CHAIR PUSHED OUT?”

Dan’s father looked stricken, and he tentatively rose from his chair, pushing his hair out of his face warily. “Dan, I am so sorry,” he began. “I forgot—”

“You ALWAYS forget,” Dan yelled, before there was a sudden crash, predictably the chair being roughly shoved to the ground, followed by more stomps, which receded up the stairs.

It was suddenly, startlingly silent without Dan yelling, and Dan’s parents looked embarrassed for his outburst.

“I really do forget to push that chair in a lot,” Mr. Howell mumbled. Dan’s mum rubbed his arm comfortingly.

“He’ll forgive you,” she said softly. “And Phil, the offer still stands. I’m sure, even though it doesn’t seem like it, that Dan would love to be proven wrong. I think he’d love if you stayed the night, showed that you don’t think he’s boring.”

She was looking pleadingly at Phil, and he couldn’t find it in himself to disappoint her. “I’d love to stay, Mrs. Howell.” He smiled. “Thank you for inviting me.”

—

Phil stood outside Dan’s room cautiously for a couple minutes, debating whether he was willing to risk going in there or not. He felt like Dan would snatch something off his nightstand and throw it at Phil’s face. Then again, in the likelihood that that would even happen, he would probably miss, being blind and all.

Tentatively, Phil eased Dan’s door open, wincing as it creaked. Dan way lying on his bed, visible only from the large lump on it, completely covered in blankets. “I’m not apologizing to Dad,” Dan-the-blanket-lump mumbled from underneath the blanket lump. “He should learn not to leave things out anyway.”

Dan, apparently under the assumption that Phil was his mum, continued. “And you shouldn’t have invited Phil to stay the night. Or even for dinner. He was only being polite, he doesn’t even like me.”

Phil’s chest felt a vicious pang go through it at those words, and he felt guilty for the mean things he’d said to Dan. In all honesty, he did like the blind boy, who was really starting to grow on him. And Dan definitely didn’t need any more people being mean to him, not when there were already bullies like Kyle and his friends throwing him into the lake. If there was anything Dan needed, it was more friends. Because Carrie was simply not enough, even if she apparently didn’t use her bitch ability on Dan.

“That’s not true,” Phil said finally, and Dan’s body stiffened visibly underneath the blankets. “I wasn’t just being polite. The prospect of food is always enough to keep me around,” he joked.

“Why are you still here?” Dan whispered.

“Because I don’t think you’re boring,” Phil said, and he invited himself onto Dan’s bed for the second time that night. Dan was lying directly in the middle, and Phil shoved him over slightly (“hey!”) to give himself space to lie down, hands folded behind his head, ankles crossed. “None of the time I’ve spent with you so far has been boring at all.”

“You don’t understand,” Dan insisted. “I can’t watch movies with you. We can’t do any of the normal things people do at sleepovers! And, like I already said, you don’t like me.”

“Sure I do,” Phil said nonchalantly.

“Just earlier today you said you were mean to me for your image.”

Phil sighed loudly. “Let’s try not to think of my image right now. I’ll find other ways to not get bullied.”

“And why are you so scared of getting bullied anyway?” Dan scoffed.

Phil stiffened indignantly. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Dan insisted. “Did you used to get bullied or something?”

“What? No!” Phil insisted. Because if Dan found out, he could tell someone, and then _they_  could tell someone, until suddenly everyone knew that Phil was weak and capable of getting bullied and they would bully him because of that. Phil refused to ever be on the receiving end of that again. He’d beat someone into a pulp before he let them bully him, and this time he wouldn’t stop.

“Because I get it,” Dan said quietly. “I mean, you saw what happened today.”

Phil was quiet for a long while, debating. Who would Dan tell anyway, Carrie? He seemed like he wasn’t going to try to use any information against him either. He likely wasn’t willing to let Phil get bullied, or do it himself, seeing as he already suffered from it.

“It wasn’t _that_  bad,” Phil insisted with a shrug, though Dan couldn’t see it. He was still under the comforter, which for some reason was helping Phil open up to him. It was like he wasn’t even opening up to a real person, much less Dan.

“What’d they do?” Dan asked quietly.

“Just— I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. Why’d they hate you so much anyway?”

Phil thought back to all the times he’d been called a fag. A queer, a shirt-lifter, a pussy. He shook it out of his head. “Dunno.”

“I’m sorry you were bullied, Phil,” Dan whispered. Phil shrugged again, letting the movement from his body shake the bed, and hopefully alert Dan enough so that he wouldn’t have to respond. “You really don’t have to sleepover though,” Dan added.

“I think I’ll stay,” Phil said, settling himself more comfortably on the bed to prove it.

—

“This is dumb,” Phil whispered, standing on Dan’s porch at one in the morning. Dan giggled quietly.

“No it’s not, and you’re not getting out of it now!”

They’d spent the rest of the night mostly talking. And Dan had lied about not being able to watch movies, too. There were ones you could buy that narrated entire scenes, telling the viewer what important things were happening. They’d watched one together, and it had been surprisingly less annoying than Phil had expected it to be. It’d helped him notice things going on in the scenes easier, and eventually, he’d let Dan coax him into watching it with his eyes closed, with only his ears to “see”.

“I’m gonna trip and die. And I still don’t trust you!” Phil insisted, although this was pretty much a lie. The night spent with Dan had been his best in awhile, seeing as he didn’t have very many pleasant memories from his old school, and he’d barely had any chances to hang out with his new friends from this one yet.

“Well you’d better learn to,” Dan laughed, before he quickly slammed something over Phil’s head. Or, more accurately, he weakly punched Phil in the head and then used his hand to feel around before shoving the material on correctly. He pulled the object, which Phil then realized was a beanie, past Phil’s eyes, rendering him sightless.

“Now come on,” Dan persuaded.

“I can’t,” Phil argued. “I’m not as good as you. I’ll trip over a rock, or something.”

“I’ll guide you,” Dan promised. “And Suki will guide me,” he laughed.

Phil rolled his beanie covered eyes and grabbed onto Dan’s arm tentatively, just above the elbow.

“Go, Suki,” Dan said softly, and the three of them started moving. Phil was trying to walk slowly, placing his feet carefully down one after the other, but Dan was having none of that. He set not a brisk pace per se, but a faster one than Phil felt comfortable going when he wasn’t able to see.

“I feel like I’m gonna trip,” Phil muttered, and Dan laughed.

“I used to feel like that too. You get used to it when you’re forced to.”

They didn’t walk for very long, thankfully. But Dan was right. Everything was more intense when he couldn’t watch to see where he was going. Phil was very aware of the cool night breeze, felt it tug at his pajamas (courtesy of Dan) and leave goosebumps in its wake. It carried with it the smell of night time and summer, and Phil inhaled deeply, unable to get enough of it.

“I knew you’d smell it,” Dan said quietly.

“What?”

“It’s what I first noticed too,” Dan admitted shyly. “My favorite thing used to be taking walks in the middle of the night. After the accident, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it any more. My parents were suddenly more protective of me than they’d ever been, and I felt like I wouldn’t be able to make it on my own anyway. But then I got Suki. I snuck out one night and just walked, kept track of how far I went. The first thing I noticed was the smell, which I’d never really paid attention to before.” Dan abruptly shut up after that, as if realizing how much he’d admitted, but Phil desperately wanted him to go on.

“What’d you notice next?”

“Crickets,” Dan said immediately. “And the sound of the grass. It’s really soft, but if you concentrate…” Dan stopped, patting Phil’s hand as he did, and they stood there, still, silently. Phil concentrated, clenching his eyes shut despite not being able to see anyway. And he heard it.

It sounded too quiet at first, but he heard it, the sound of the grass brushing against itself. He could tell that it was swaying, and he heard the wind in the grass before he felt it, pulling at his clothes once more. Somewhere around them, he heard the abrupt sound of something moving in the grass, some small animal scurrying to and fro.

“Bunny,” Dan identified in a whisper, turning Phil in the direction that the sound had come from. Listening still, Phil realized he could hear it better now, thanks to Dan changing his position. Dan no doubt had better senses than Phil, having had to use them more intently for an entire year than Phil ever had in his life.

Then, Phil finally heard the crickets. He didn’t know how he hadn’t heard them before, because the second he heard the first chirp, he could swear he was hearing hundreds. All around them, the singing of crickets, unrhythmic and unrelated, all chirping their own song.

“Wow,” Phil breathed, tempted to just sit down and listen.

“Crickets?” Dan asked simply, softly. Phil nodded, before realizing neither of them could see it.

“Yeah.”

“Come on, I know something even better,” Dan promised, which Phil found hard to believe, but trusted him anyway. He let Dan tug him along more surely, not resisting so much and just letting his feet do what they knew to do. Suki was obviously well trained, and she was leading both Dan and Phil safely, though Phil still felt uneasy when he thought about it for too long. He was trusting a dog’s eyesight instead of his own.

Abruptly, they were turning off the sidewalk, into the grass, and Phil clenched Dan’s arm tighter for a second in surprise. “Don’t worry,” said Dan. “I come down here all the time. There’s a path.”

There was, indeed, a path, which they were very soon acquainted with. Phil could hear the creaking of tree branches and the rustle of leaves up above them, and they were doubtlessly in the forest. There were so many noises, things that he never bothered to concentrate on when he didn’t need to. He knew that it was beautiful out tonight, the moon bright, lighting up the ground, the stars twinkling merrily in the sky. But it was beautiful without those sights as well. The sounds were beautiful, they were magical, in fact, and Phil felt so in tune with Dan. He wanted to hold his hand instead of his arm, but he knew that’d be seen as weird. Dan would probably call him a fag, would probably push him to the ground and run away from him. And Phil didn’t want to lose this friendship that he was only now starting to get.

Then Phil heard the sound of trickling water. “River?” he guessed.

“Yep,” Dan said. “This way.”

He was lead down a steep hill (“Lean back and don’t place your feet too far away from each other. Brush the ground with your foot before you place it down, in case there’s any loose rocks.”) and onto what felt like concrete again, despite knowing that he was directly beside a river, off the path.

“What are we on?” he asked.

“A large rock. It hangs over the river,” Dan said. Phil felt slightly uneasy, knowing they weren’t on entirely safe ground, but he figured if Dan had been there before it must be safe.

“Now listen,” Dan said, incredibly quietly, while pulling Phil down to sit on the rock. And Phil did. The running water trickled merrily past them, singing its babbling brook song, with the occasional odd splashing from an animal or fish of some sort. He could also smell the river, sharp and clean, and occasionally felt drops of water land on his bare skin. Even with all the overwhelming and wonderful sounds from the river, he could also hear the rest of the forest surrounding them, swaying in the wind, creaking and groaning and adding to the melody and harmony of the nature. It was intense and vibrant and Phil felt like he was seeing better than he ever had in his life, and his eyes weren’t even open.

“It’s beautiful,” Phil whispered, after who knows how long. He’d lost himself in time, become a part of nature itself.

“You’re looking?” Dan said quietly, sounding somewhat hurt.

“Of course not,” Phil scoffed. “I don’t need to see it to know it’s beautiful.”

Dan laughed then, something full of joy and light, and then his hand found Phil’s and squeezed. And when he moved to pull his hand out of Phil’s, Phil tightened his grasp and kept it there. So Dan stopped pulling and squeezed again, and Phil squeezed back. And Dan scooted closer to Phil, so that their shoulders were pressed together, their arms and their legs, and their intertwined hands sat on top of their touching thighs.

They became a part of the earth, the atmosphere. The sound and beauty and song surrounded them, and they bathed in it for a long time, unsure whether it was hours or minutes that passed. The nature was loud and they were silent, except for the drumming of their beating hearts, loud in their own ears.

And when they eventually did go back, stumbling on their sleeping legs, they still held hands, and they both went without sight. And it was true that Dan’s bed was comfy, but Dan was comfier.


	8. Chapter 8

Dan woke slowly, feeling himself become more alert second by second, sections of his brain waking up before others. First he could register a distinct sound, the sound of breathing, audible in a way that made Dan think it was close to his ear, which it couldn’t be. The part of him that he was still half asleep helped to assure this fact.

The next thing Dan’s waking body became aware of was a distinct smell. A smell of warmth and sweetness, like sugar heated and wafting through the air. Dan breathed in deeply, inhaling the wonderful scent, unable to get enough of it. He couldn’t help wondering where it came from, but he was still too asleep to figure it out.

Before the accident, Dan had always woken up all at once. His eyes would fly open, and he’d rub the blurriness out of them, blinking slowly and tiredly. Now, however, he kept his eyes firmly closed until he was completely awake. This way he could pretend, could imagine that the reason he couldn’t see was because his eyes were shut, could pretend that this was all his choice.

At first, Dan had been absolutely terrified every morning after the accident. He would wake up the way he always had, eyes opening, hands raised to rub them. Except that it’d still been dark, and he’d been sure that he was still asleep. And then he’d been wishing that he was still asleep, because anything was better than that eternal darkness.

Now, Dan kept his eyes shut for as long as possible. It helped to ease the disappointment that still lingered in the mornings. It was hard for it not to, when his dreams were filled will color and light and images that his subconscious mind got to continue to enjoy while his waking one was forced to suffer in darkness. Because every morning when he opened his eyes, he was still hit with a small pang in his chest, an exhausted wishing that he could see, that he could wake up and see the posters that he’d refused to take down from his walls and the dark green wall paint he’d always despised. He kept his eyes closed because until then it wasn’t real.

It was in the midst of all this keeping his eyes closed that Dan realized he was rising and falling gently. At first he wondered if it was because of his own breathing, but that didn’t make any sense. Then he realized that he could still hear breathing, breaths that weren’t his own, and not only could he hear it, he could feel these breaths against against his ear. Even more disconcerting, Dan realized with a horrified inner scream, he was rising and falling _with the breaths_. Needless to say, Dan very suddenly found the source of the amazing smell, it was directly under his nose.

He also became aware of the soft but firm body that he was embarrassingly sprawled across. Dan was lying on his stomach, his face was pillowed on Phil’s chest, and as he realized this, he also realized that he could hear Phil’s heart directly below his ear. _Tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump_. His chest was mostly on top of Phil, with only his shoulder and arm on the bed. His other arm was shoved between his body and Phil’s, and (oh god) clutching onto Phil’s shirt. Thankfully, one of Dan’s entire legs remained on the bed, along with most of his waist, but his other leg was hooked around both of Phil’s, making Dan feel tragically like he’d have to kill himself (if he managed to live from the embarrassment).

Dan allowed himself a second to hope that Phil was still asleep, and had yet to notice any of this mortifying clinging, allowing him to untangle himself from the other boy discreetly. Although it was then that he managed to tune into the pattern of Phil’s breathing, which was quite irregular. And people who slept breathed deep, slow and even breaths. Phil was not breathing like a sleeping person at all.

Horrified, Dan tried to quickly formulate a plan, anything to get out of this. He couldn’t help feeling that Phil was only allowing this because of the horrendous spiel his mother had given the night before, about how he had zero friends and zero sleepovers. Phil was surely pitying Dan incredibly, and that was the only reason he was letting a sleeping Dan cling to him like a koala.

Plus, Dan had probably been totally out of line the night before. He’d forced Phil to go outside blindfolded, and though Phil had claimed to like it, that’s most likely all he was doing. Lying to make Dan feel better. And why wouldn’t he? Dan was pathetic. He was blind and lonely and having his first sleepover in over a year and Phil was simply humoring him. And _god_ , what had Dan been thinking? _Holding_  his _hand?_  Dan was crazy, and— and sick! Phil probably thought he was creepy and gross and he was probably glaring at Dan with disgust right his instant.

Finally coming up with a plan, Dan decided to just roll off the other boy and pretend to still be asleep. It was what Dan did with most of his problems, anyway— avoided them.

And so Dan took one last irresistible sniff of Phil’s chest, and then he rolled away, hoping he looked convincing. He unhooked his leg from around Phil’s, and scooted off his chest. Unfortunately, Phil’s arm had apparently been flung out to the side, and Dan was still lying on that. And Dan held in a surprised gasp when Phil’s fingers dug into his stomach as he pulled Dan backward, so that his back was pressed against Phil’s chest. He kept his body limp, still feigning sleep, but was unable to keep the surprised expression off his face. Phil _wanted_  to cuddle?

Phil then nuzzled his nose into the back of Dan’s hair, and he heard him breath in deeply, which led Dan to believe that Phil was smelling him. And sure, he had smelled Phil, but this was different. Surely he didn’t smell as good as Phil had! He thought hard, trying to remember what his shampoo smelled like, but was unable to come up with any idea.

With a thrill, Dan realized that the tug Phil had done to get him across the bed had caused his shirt to ride up slightly, and Phil’s fingers were pressed lightly against his bare stomach. He rubbed his fingers slowly, carefully, as if curious but cautious of waking Dan.

But Dan had the advantage of _already_  being awake, however, and had to restrain himself from making any surprised noises as Phil trailed his fingers over the minuscule amount of exposed skin he had offered to him. Goosebumps raised wherever he touched, and yet he continually stroked his fingers across the soft skin of Dan’s belly, as if he were a pet cat or something. Dan almost wanted to purr.

Suddenly, as if the experience of touching Dan’s bare skin was just not enough and he now hungered for more, the arm that had been previously thrown carelessly over his body pulled close. Phil trailed his finger along the hem of Dan’s shirt, this time going all the way across Dan’s stomach, now that he wasn’t restricted with a body on top of his hand. And, achingly slowly, Phil trailed this finger upward, pushing up underneath Dan’s shirt.

Dan had to concentrate hard to control the shivers that were trying to wrack his body from the simple pleasure of Phil’s hand touching his stomach. He wanted to tug his shirt over his head and drag Phil on top of him, wanted to force Phil to touch him, both hands at once, palms splayed over his stomach.

Instead he stayed deathly still, letting Phil continue his careful exploration. Maybe he hadn’t been pretending last night, maybe he _had_  liked the sounds and smells and feel of the earth. Maybe he didn’t regret walking home with Dan, hand in hand, Dan’s heart thundering probably loud enough for him to hear the whole way.

Then Phil’s hand was on his chest, fingers spread wide and pressed flat against him, holding him gently but firmly against his own body. And he just kept his hand there, occasionally stroking his thumb slowly, and Dan basked in it. He laid there in Phil’s arms, appreciating his warmth and the gentle touch of his fingers for a few more minutes, before he heard the dreaded sound of footsteps. He recognized them, light and quick, the footsteps of his mother.

Suddenly, Dan knew he had to make a choice. Let his mother walk in here and see him cuddling with a boy (and therefore pretty much find out that he’s gay, or at least assume) or let Phil know that he’d been awake the whole time Phil had been touching him? The footsteps got louder and closer, but they were still quiet enough that Dan figured a person with hearing not as finely tuned as his wouldn’t hear it.

Dan was sure Phil could feel his heart pounding under his fingers all of the sudden, and he finally made his choice. His hand whipped up and gently but quickly dragged Phil’s hand out of his shirt and away from him. Phil inhaled sharply, but Dan only wasted a “shh!” for him before he rolled to the side and planted his face into his pillow. He could feel Phil’s confusion even from over here, but he ignored it as his door creaked open and his mother stepped in.

“Dan, honey?” she whispered, and Dan faked a waking up groan, rolling over and opening his eyes for the first time that morning, swallowing the disappointment.

“What?” he croaked back.

“Why don’t you and Phil come down for some breakfast? It’s already ten and we’ll be leaving at noon,” she continued in a whisper, and Dan realized that Phil must’ve been faking sleep too.

“Okay,” he answered, and his mum slid from the room, shutting the door behind her. There was a few seconds of silence while her footsteps faded away, and then Phil took a deep breath.

“Dan,” he began, sounding choked. “I am _so_  sor—”

“Don’t be,” Dan interrupted immediately.

“But—”

“I liked it,” Dan cut in again, quietly this time. And then he stood up immediately, embarrassment flooding through him in the form of a blush. “Now let’s go downstairs.”

—

Dan stood in the corner of the living room, Phil firmly by his side. The air was thrumming with the chatter from the various people invited to the house party, and Dan secretly wished they would quiet down. Hearing so many people talking at once tended to annoy him, seeing as it felt like a sensory overload, all these voices trying to climb into his ears at once.

He and Phil were both holding small plates of food (unless Phil had somehow put his down without Dan noticing) and they were quietly munching on tiny sandwiches and fruit platters while they waited to escape.

They had no clue how long they were expected to stay, and Dan was just looking for a sign from his parents allowing him to leave. Luckily they’d yet to run into Kyle, but Dan knew it would suck when they did. Kyle would already be having a hard enough time accepting the fact that Dan was in his house, but Phil too? He’d be furious.

“I want to leave,” Dan murmured, and Phil bumped his shoulder into Dan’s in a form of companionship. He wasn’t having any better a time than Dan was.

“Let’s ditch,” Phil suggested, his voice full of longing. Dan considered it, tapping his foot anxiously on the ground.

“I don’t know…” he muttered, and Phil kicked him lightly in the ankle. “I’ll get you an ice cream or something,” he offered.

“Sold,” Dan said, and he strained his ears, listening for his mother’s voice, but he didn’t hear her and so they escaped anyway.

He didn’t have Suki with him, just Phil and his cane (it was lucky that he had extras), but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was just thankful to get out of Kyle’s house, out of a place where he felt unsafe.

Unfortunately, neither Dan nor Phil noticed the door opening and closing once more behind them. And they also didn’t notice the figures following them.

Soon equipped with ice cream cones, Dan and Phil ventured to a nearby park, where they sat in the swings, pushing lightly against the mulch underfoot and letting themselves rock back and forth. It was peaceful, and the day was nice, the sun shining down and warming their skin. They didn’t say anything as that sat and ate their ice cream, the silence comfortable and relaxing.

Unfortunately, it must’ve been too relaxing, because Dan was sure that Phil’s eyes were closed. That was the only explanation for him not noticing anyone around them until it was too late.

Dan’s ice cream was abruptly knocked out of his hand, and his mouth dropped open in confusion and surprise. “My ice cream!” he immediately blurted, unthinkingly, as if this was his biggest worry. Not that someone had just come up and smacked it away from him, nor who that someone might be.

“Leave us alone!” Phil said suddenly, and Dan heard him standing up, marching the few short feet between their swings to stand next to Dan.

One of Kyle’s friends scoffed. “We don’t care about you,” he growled.

“Just him,” another said. God, Dan didn’t even recognize these voices. It was as if Kyle was getting even more friends, even more people who for some reason wanted to hurt him.

“Back the fuck off!” Phil barked. Someone laughed, and Dan heard a slight scuffle, and Phil grunting. Dan leaped to his feet, slipping slightly in his fallen ice cream. More laughter.

“Get away from him,” Dan said as firmly as he could manage. He was glaring, unsure if he was actually glaring at anyone, but doing so all the same. The sounds of the scuffle stopped, and then someone was grabbing Dan, yanking his arms behind his back.

“Stop!” Phil cried, at the same time that Dan let out a surprised sounding yell. He could hear various voices jeering and crooning, though whether it was at him or Phil he didn’t know.

“Or what?” the person holding Dan, who turned out to be Kyle, taunted.

Kyle suddenly let out a pained sounding yell, and Dan could only imagine what Phil had managed to do before his hand was being grabbed by a soft, familiar feeling one, and they were running.

“Fuck!” Phil panted as they ran, and Dan got the distinct feeling that he was whipping his head back and forward to look at their pursuers and their path. Dan could hear pounding feet behind them, and he put his trust entirely in Phil, clenching his hand even tighter, and sped up despite the fear clenching in his chest.

The boys chasing them were yelling, which made Dan’s head spiral with panic and his legs threaten to give out underneath him.

“Turning,” Phil managed to say before whipping Dan around a corner, their feet slapping against pavement and they thundered down a street. They continued in this manner for a couple streets, before Phil suddenly gasped in a breath and halted, making Dan go stumbling forward without him. Luckily his hand was still held tightly in Phil’s, who pulled him right before he could start to fall.

“Dead end,” Phil muttered, panting for breath. He started to turn them around, saying, “come on,” but he barely managed to get the words out before Kyle’s gang caught up with them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” a thug leered, and Dan squeezed Phil’s hand tighter in fear, unsure of what they were going to do.

“Just leave us alone,” Phil said loudly, a hind of pleading in his voice. He went completely ignored, the gang of boys advancing on them anyway. “Stop it!” Phil commanded. He was ignored again. Someone grabbed Dan’s arm. “Don’t hurt him!” he yelled.

“Fine,” Kyle snapped. “Carston, Rick,” he said, and then another hand was grabbing Dan’s other arm. Seemingly without command, or maybe with a nonverbal one, the two boys holding Dan’s arms yanked him off his feet, carrying him under his legs as well. Dan squirmed, trying to fight his way out of their arms, and Phil was yelling incoherently.

Suddenly, Dan was lowered slightly and then thrust into the air, where the hands holding him then let go. There were a few seconds of distinct weightlessness, and Dan knew he had been thrown, and then he was crashing down into something oddly wet with many different textures. The smell hit him seconds after he landed in it, and Dan gagged, his unseeing eyes watering. He’d been thrown into a _dumpster_.

He struggled to climb out of it but his body continued to sink amongst the garbage, plastic crinkling around him and metal cans crunching beneath him, and he couldn’t find any leverage. He tried to grab hold of the sides and yank himself out, but they were incredibly slippery, and even with his struggles he couldn’t forget that he was _literally crawling through trash_. The sudden feeling of being covered in ants hit him, and his entire body erupted in invisible itches and tingles, tricking him into thinking that they were really there. He tried not to imagine the millions of things he was surrounded by, the germs and slime covering his body like a second coat.

“Agh!” Dan heard someone yell, and then there was the horrible sound of flesh hitting flesh, and grunts of pain, and Dan knew it was Phil on the receiving end.

“No, Phil!” Dan cried. “Stop!” he begged. He attacked the walls of the dumpster with renewed vigor, trying to ignore the fact that his body was soaked in the various liquids of the trash, which was quite easy when he concentrated on Phil. He could hear whimpering, and cheers and laughter, and god it was sickening.

“No, _please_!” Dan wailed. “Stop hurting him, please!”

It was over nearly as soon as it’d begun, and the voices of Kyle and his friends faded away as they ran, and Dan realized that he was on the verge of tears as he finally latched onto the edge and _heaved_ , flinging himself over the dumpster and falling from an unknown height to the ground. He landed on his foot, which twisted sharply underneath him as he hit, pain exploding in his ankle, but he ignored it.

He ran to Phil, who he could hear panting and groaning, adrenaline keeping him from collapsing on his likely sprained ankle. “Phil, Phil!” he cried, dropping to his knees beside the other boy, hands fluttering anxiously above his body. He didn’t know where he was hurt, or how bad it was, and he didn’t know how to help without making it worse.

“God Phil are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Phil whispered, and then Dan heard him dragging himself to his feet. Dan wondered how badly he was actually hurt, seeing as Dan couldn’t see for himself. “Are you?” Phil added.

“Fine,” Dan muttered. “Smelly,” he added.

“Why the hell do they hate you so much?” Phil demanded, and he grabbed Dan’s hand (with two fingers, touching as little of him as he could) leading him in the right direction. Dan heard an irregularity in his footsteps, which suggested a limp. Dan glared at him.

“Are you limping?” he demanded. Phil laughed.

“As if you’re not,” he pointed out. Dan then realized that he was limping as well, and he wished that his hands were clean so that he could intertwine them with Phil’s.

“They hate me so much because Kyle tells them to. I don’t know what he has against me, our families have been friends for as long as I can remember, but he didn’t act like this when we were little,” Dan explained.

“Maybe he’s crazy,” Phil suggested.

Dan was lead to Phil’s house, which was closer, and he was shoved into the bathroom. “Shower,” Phil commanded. “I’ll get you some clothes.”

Dan managed to stumble around the bathroom, finding his way into the shower after turning it on and ditching his clothes. He had no idea what the bottles and things in the shower were, so he could only take a guess and hope for the best. Besides, he was pretty sure that rubbing body wash in his hair on accident was better than letting the trash liquid stay.

Dan felt along the shelf, grabbing various bottles and opening them to sniff them. Two of them smelled the same (fruity), which he took to be shampoo and conditioner. Another bottle smelled strong and a bit like Phil, which Dan assumed to be the body wash. He washed his hair three times, scrubbing harshly, practically tugging his hair out of his head to try to make sure it was clean again. He washed his body five different times, washing behind his ears and between his toes and in every conceivable spot in an attempt to feel clean again. When he finally finished his shower and emerged into the steamy bathroom, he had to feel around on every surface looking for the clothes Phil had promised him, and once he did, he didn’t find a towel.

“Phil?” he called, cracking the door open and leaning around it.

“Yeah?” he heard in return. “Have you been calling me a while? Sorry, I just showered in my mum’s bathroom.”

“No, I haven’t been. Uh, is there a towel?” Dan questioned. The water remaining on his body had turned cold, and he was shivering in the bathroom air, which was now empty of steam, it having escaped into Phil’s room.

“Shit!” Phil exclaimed, and then he ran out of the room before running back in. “Here,” he said, shoving a towel into the crack of the door into Dan’s hands.

“Thanks,” Dan muttered. And so he dried himself off and climbed into Phil’s clothes (what felt like a loose t-shirt, boxers, and flannel pajama pants) which he no clue of the color of, though he was mostly sure that it didn’t fit his all black aesthetic.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Phil snickered, and Dan paused self-consciously. “What?”

“I’ve just never seen you in so many colors,” Phil admitted.

“What am I wearing?” Dan asked, amusement coloring his voice. He tentatively walked towards Phil’s voice, aware that there might be obstacles in his path, before he reached the bed. He went ahead and invited himself onto it, as Phil had done at his house, and scooted around until he reached the pillows, which he leaned against. Phil followed, settling beside him.

“A pink shirt,” he started, and Dan groaned. “It looks good on you!” Phil insisted, laughing, and Dan nearly punched him in the arm before remembering that someone else had already done that today.

“Your pants are a checkered dark blue, at least,” Phil relented, and Dan breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Oh thank _god_ ,” he said.

Phil laughed, and then they lapsed into silence for a few minutes. “Are you really okay?” Dan asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Phil ensured.

And despite it being the middle of the day, soon they both scooted further down on the bed for a nap. And when Phil’s hand tentatively found it’s way to Dan’s stomach, he didn’t even think of protesting. In fact, Dan might have even pushed his shirt higher up, giving Phil easier access.

And even though Dan knew that he had absolutely no idea what was going on between them, he knew that he liked it, whatever it was.


	9. Chapter 9

“I have to go to gym,” Dan said with a sigh, walking in through the main entrance of the school beside Phil.

“Me too,” Phil answered. Dan paused, tilting his head to the side questioningly.

“We’re in the same gym class?” Dan asked inquisitively.

“Yes,” Phil laughed, before grabbing onto Dan’s arm and pulling him along.

“How come I didn’t know this?” Dan demanded.

“Well we weren’t really friends last week, were we?” Phil joked.

“Oh yeah,” Dan replied. And it wasn’t like Phil had expected Dan to deny the fact that they were friends now, but he was still glad when he didn’t.

Of course, it’d be pretty hard to not be friends after the weekend they’d spent together. Phil couldn’t stop reliving the day before, playing the events in his mind over and over again.

There’d been the horribly mortifying moment in the morning, as he’d cuddled Dan and practically molested his stomach, where Dan had actually been _awake_  the whole time, he’d claimed to like it though. But Phil hadn’t been able to help it. His thumb had ended up under the other boy’s shirt, and his skin had been so warm, so soft… Even thinking about it now left Phil wanting to reach over and shove his hands up under Dan’s clothes.

He could remember trailing his fingers upward carefully, pressing them flat against Dan’s chest and holding him close to his own body. And sure, getting beat up by Kyle and his cronies wasn’t any fun, but seeing Dan wearing his baggy pajamas definitely was. Dan had smelled like Phil’s soap after his shower, and he’d registered no complaint when Phil had immediately taken to cuddling him again. Nor when Phil had trailed his fingers back under his shirt once more, traversing the soft and smooth skin, brushing over the soft hairs of his stomach.

Phil was broken out of his (very pleasant) reverie by a shrill, “Dan!”

Dan whirled around, tilting his head in that odd way he often did, as if he were looking with his ear, and said, “Carrie?”

“Where were you this morning?” she snapped, irritation clear in her voice. She then seemed to notice Phil, and her eyes squinted, flickering between the two of them calculatingly.

“Oh, um—”

“I got to your house to pick you up and your mum had to tell me that you’d already left,” she growled. If Phil were Dan, he’d be backing away already. Dan, however, winded before smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he said guiltily, twiddling his fingers in front of him. “Er— Phil picked me up.”

“Phil.”

“Yes, Phil,” Dan said.

“Me,” Phil added, to remind them that he was, in fact, present.

“He doesn’t like car rides with just anyone,” Carrie blurted suddenly, looking at Phil fiercely.

“I’ve already driven him quite a few times,” Phil snarled in response. “And he was fine.”

“Stop speaking for me,” Dan said angrily, receiving apologies from both of his friends.

Suddenly, Carrie stepped forward and hugged Dan fiercely. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” she whispered into his ear, though not quietly enough, seeing as Phil could still hear it. She then backed up slightly, pressed a kiss to Dan’s cheek, and pulled away from him.

Carrie then ruffled his hair affectionately to an annoyed “hey!” before disappearing for her first class.

“Does my hair look okay?” Dan asked hastily, turning to look at Phil as they walked.

“Yes,” Phil said. “Although I think it looks better curly,” he added truthfully. Dan groaned.

“It looks stupid when it’s curly,” he argued.

“You can’t even see it.”

“I used to be able to.”

“Well maybe it’s changed since then,” Phil rebutted. Dan scoffed but bumped his shoulder amicably.

Finally, they arrived at the boys’ locker room to change. They continued to talk as they crossed the room and propped their bags on a bench, pulling out their gym clothes.

Phil’s mouth went dry as he watched Dan pull off his shirt, who suddenly went silent, his mouth clamped shut. He was quick to pull off his trousers too, and he instantly started grabbing for his gym clothes. Phil had no hope of changing his own clothes, too busy staring pathetically at a boy who couldn’t even tell that he was staring. Phil longed to touch Dan, to press him against the lockers behind him, run his fingers up and down his chest, press his face into Dan’s neck. He looked so soft and beautiful, Phil actually had to squeeze his hands into fists by his sides to keep from touching the other boy.

“Phil?” Dan said, pulling Phil out of his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“I said I was sorry,” Dan said as he pulled a t-shirt on over his head. Phil’s thoughts suddenly cleared now that less of Dan was on display, and he cleared his throat. “If I was being weird,” Dan clarified.

“What?” Phil asked, still not quite understanding what Dan was talking about.

“I just, I always change like that— really fast. I don’t want to change when everyone else is here. It’s unsettling, knowing they could all be staring at me but not knowing if they actually are,” Dan said in a small voice with a little shrug. Phil instantly felt guilty, having done just that, and he stripped off his shirt in an attempt to brush away the guilt.

“That’s no problem, Dan,” he said easily. People were starting to come into the locker room now, which likely made Dan feel glad that he’d already changed.

“Holy shit, Phil!” a voice said suddenly from behind him. Phil spun around, spotting Pj.

“What?” he questioned. Dan was still standing by his side, curiously facing the newcomer. “It’s Pj,” Phil added, for Dan’s benefit.

“I know,” Dan said. “I recognize his voice.”

“Oh.”

“Phil, seriously, what the fuck happened to you?” Pj exclaimed.

“What do you mean?”

Pj made a series of disbelieving noises before finally gesturing violently at Phil’s bare chest, splotched all over with vicious shades of blue and purple.

“Use your words!” Dan blurted suddenly. “I have no idea what’s going on! What happened to Phil?”

Phil opened his mouth to reply that nothing had happened, but Pj got to it first.

“He’s— he’s _covered_  in bruises, it’s like he was run over by a fucking train,” he said gravely, before stepping closer to get a better look at Phil’s chest. “What the fuck,” he breathed, eyes wide.

“Okay, calm down,” Phil commanded, rolling his eyes.

“You said it wasn’t that bad!” Dan snapped, crossing his arms and glaring moodily at a space slightly left of Phil.

“ _What happened_?” Pj demanded, yet again. Phil sighed a long, put-upon sigh, while Dan continued to glare and Pj continued to look alarmingly worried.

“I just got a little—” Phil began, but was interrupted by Dan.

“Phil got beat up by psycho maniacs who were trying to beat _me_  up and he _lied_  and said that it wasn’t that bad!” Dan exploded.

“It’s not!” Phil insisted.

“It is!” Pj interjected.

“Not helping, Peej!”

“It looks like your body’s growing tumors,” Pj stated simply. Dan let out a let a small moan of horror, his hands going up to clutch at his face.

“Will you two just stop worrying?” Phil snapped, and with that he tugged on his gym shirt, hiding most of the bruises from view.

Dan made a disgruntled sound and Pj said, “but!” as Phil walked away from them. They both scrambled to keep up, Dan immediately latching onto Phil’s arm as he’d left his cane on the bench.

“Do you want me to get your cane?” Phil asked, slowing down.

“I’ll be fine,” Dan assured. “Just lead me to the cross trainer?”

—

“Next up…” said the daunting voice of Mr. Halver, calling yet another project pair to their doom. “Mr. Howell and Mr. Lester.” Sighs of relief sound throughout the room, trumped only by the groans of Dan and Phil.

Phil shoved his chair back and stood before waiting politely by Dan’s desk, letting him grab onto his arm instead of having to get out his cane. He then set up their poster at the front of the classroom while Dan stood beside him looking unsure and nervous. It occurred to him that Dan really must not like being stared at, especially now that he knew it was happening and couldn’t do anything about it.

“Okay,” Phil said, standing on the opposite side of the poster. “We did our project on car safety.”

There were a few gasps from around the room, and Dan flinched slightly, likely knowing that they were all directed at him.

“Oh my god,” someone whispered, and Dan visibly tensed. Phil tried to forge on, speaking louder than was probably necessary in an attempt to cover any other sounds the audience made.

“The reason we chose car safety is because…”

“Well _that’s_  obvious.”

“…it’s really important to be safe in cars. It’s important to wear seatbelt and minimize distractions, because although cars are useful in today’s society they’re still giant metal machines and can be very dangerous.”

“Does he even _know_?” someone whispered in the back of the classroom.

“What about Dan?”

“This is sick.”

“Didn’t Dan go blind because of a car?”

Phil glanced over at Dan warily, a pang going through his heart as he saw the other boy shaking, his fingers locked in a death grip on his side of the poster. Dan’s mouth was a grim line, and he looked on the verge of running away, with cane or without.

“Um,” Phil started again. “And in order to do these things, you should—“

The talking was continuous at this point, and almost every student was talking about Dan, pitying him and asking questions about him and staring at him. It was a wonder Mr. Halver hadn’t said anything, but then again, it looked like he was asleep with his eyes open. Phil looked at Dan again, who was white in the face.

Finally, having had enough of this, for both his sake and Dan’s, Phil reached around the poster, dislodged Dan’s hand, and lead him out of the classroom. Dan came easily, practically hugging himself to Phil’s side, grateful for the escape and support. The second they were out of the classroom Dan fell into Phil’s arms, wrapping his arms tightly around Phil’s middle. Phil held him close, stroking slowly up and down his back. Dan’s hair was right next to Phil’s nose and he couldn’t help inhaling it, still smelling like his shampoo from the day before.

“It’s okay, Dan,” Phil whispered, still stroking his hands over Dan’s back. At one point his hand slipped slightly under Dan’s shirt, and he kept it there, right at the bottom of the blind boy’s back, stroking his back slowly with his thumb. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“It’s not your fault,” Dan whispered in response, leaning even more heavily into Phil. There wass nothing for Phil to do but hug him close and wait for Dan to recover.

Finally, Dan pulled back slightly, but he slipped his hand into Phil’s and leaned into his shoulder companionably. “Take me to the library?” he asked quietly, and Phil complied, obviously, with no regard for the fact that they were ditching class or leaving all their things behind.

They walked to the library in silence, which Phil is beginning to suspect is Dan’s refuge, and seat themselves at one of the back tables, where Phil had once spied on Carrie and Dan. (Twice, actually.) Dan dropped his hand and hopped onto the table immediately, and he waited for Phil to climb on before resting his head on Phil’s thighs, just like Phil had seen him do to Carrie.

A few minutes passed, a comfortable silence, before Dan cleared his throat quietly. “Wanna know the last thing I ever saw?” he asked, voice raw and broken sounding. And no, Phil didn't. He didn't want to know what Dan had to see before his sight was torn away from him, his life as he knew it upended and replaced with the life of a disabled person. But he said yes anyway, because he’s Dan’s friend, and Dan is warm and sad and soft and cute and Phil is determined to always be there for him, whether he be sad or happy or anything else.

“The car,” Dan whispered, and he’s still staring up at the ceiling, although he’s not _really_  staring, couldn’t possibly be staring. It’s just the direction that his eyes happened to be facing, and they’re surprisingly dry, devoid of tears. “It was a blue pickup truck,” Dan stated. “And it ran a red light.

“I didn’t really have time to think anything, but it got so close. I could even see the person driving. A big, scared looking man.”

Dan was silent for a moment, and Phil didn’t know how to answer, so he buried his hands in Dan’s hair, playing with the strands and surely messing it up, though Dan didn’t stop him.

“I can’t really remember what I look like,” Dan said quietly, moments later. Phil didn’t even have time to think about what he wanted to say before he was responding, his mouth moving of its own accord.

“Adorable,” he said at once, face flaring red. But it was too late now, and he already had his hands in Dan’s hair, had already felt up Dan’s stomach the day before, so really, what did he have to lose? “You blush really easily. You glare and roll your eyes a lot, so they’re still good for one thing, at least. Your whole face lights up when you smile, and your hair is adorable when its curly, and even when it’s not there’s usually a strand somewhere that’s you’ve missed.”

“I knew Carrie was lying,” Dan muttered, but he was blushing vibrantly (as always) and fighting off a smile.

“Your eyes still hold a lot of emotion, even though they can’t see,” Phil whispers, continuing. “You always look good in your all black outfits, but you look just as good decked out in my colorful pajamas.” By this point Dan had thrown his arms over his face to hide his blush (and quiet giggles) so Phil decided to take pity on him. “It’s okay if you forget what you look like. I’m free to give you a reminder anytime.”

Dan laughed, shaking his head back and forth against Phil’s legs. “Well now I want to know what you look like,” he said. Phil groaned.

“Eyes, nose,” he supplied thoughtfully. “Mouth. Ears.”

“Come on!” Dan begged. “Like you described me.”

“Terrifying. Vampire teeth. Tons of tattoos!”

“Phil!” Dan whined, though he was laughing.

“I can’t describe myself like that,” Phil argued. “I don’t see myself like I see you, and I would sound self centered.”

“You’ll have to let me touch your face then,” Dan sing-songed.

“Fine,” Phil said, and Dan’s mouth dropped open.

“Really?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Dan’s eyebrows drew together in confusion but he sat up nonetheless, sitting on his knees beside Phil, who turned to face him. He reached out tentatively, fingers hitting Phil’s chest first. He slid them slowly upward, blushing the whole while (typical) before his hands finally trailed up Phil’s neck and onto his face.

His fingers were gentle and smooth, and they glided carefully over his face. They left a trail of warmth behind them as he traced the shapes of Phil’s face, his own expression intent and determined. He skimmed around Phil’s eyebrows before going over them with the pad of his thumb. He brushed lightly over Phil’s eyelids, pressed down as he slid down Phil’s nose, then back up it. He followed the end of Phil’s nose downward, fitting the tip of his finger into the philtrum. Dan then slid his thumb over Phil’s lip, following it from the left to the right, pressing down in the middle. Phil hardly resisted the urge to let his tongue dart out and lick Dan’s finger.

Dan then ran his fingers down again, over his neck, and he let them rest on Phil’s adam’s apple. “Say something,” he said, hand still held in place.

“Dan,” Phil said immediately, and Dan smiled.

“I can feel you talking.”

“I can see you blushing.”

“I am vomiting,” said an annoying female voice.

“Carrie!” Dan said excitedly, before realizing that he’d just been caught feeling up Phil’s face.

Carrie slid onto the table on the other side of Dan, and their group of two became a group of three. Phil made eye contact with Carrie, and she seemed to have spotted something that she approved of, because she simply nodded and said nothing else.

Carrie shared her lunch with them (Phil was surprised when she’d laid out her lunch between the three of them) seeing as they’d both forgotten theirs.

“I always have extra anyway,” Carrie explained. “Since Dan forgets a lot.”

Lunch was nice, if a bit strained and awkward. Phil stayed silent most of the time, and Carrie only really interacted with Dan. Occasionally Dan would seem to realize all over again that Phil was there, and would change the topic to fit Phil, or would ask him a question, and Phil would answer quickly, letting the conversation flow back to Dan and Carrie. Still, it was nice.

—

“No way,” Dan laughed, pulling away. Phil kept a firm hold on his arm, smiling widely and laughing. It was the weekend, the week having passed in a blur of boring classes, lunch with Dan and Carrie (occasionally joined by Pj or Jack or Dean), and the repeated skipping of English class, which neither of them felt inclined to face.

Phil had somehow convinced Dan to go to a festival with him though, despite the crowds and noise and generally horrible atmosphere for a blind person. With a promise to protect him, Phil had let Dan clutch onto his arm the whole evening, his free hand swinging his cane widely in an attempt to give himself a berth.

Night had finally fallen, and the festival was ending. Phil was determined to do something fun with their remaining minutes in the festival, but Dan was for some reason adamant to avoid the ferris wheel.

“We’re going,” Phil insisted, and he wrapped his arm around Dan’s waist, prepared to manhandle him onto the ferris wheel. Instead, whether it be shock or something else, Dan’s body instantly loosened and became compliant, letting Phil lead him to the ferris wheel.

They stepped through the ticket barrier and onto the ferris wheel, Dan nestled beside Phil on the bench, the opposite seat empty.

“Enjoy your ride,” one guard said lifelessly. Phil nodded at him in response, and he cranked a lever, sending the ferris wheel up slowly. The view was incredible, and it only got better as they went up. Bright lights were scattered all throughout the festival, making the ground shine as if it were scattered in stars. He craned his neck to see, trying to take in everything, before he finally glanced at Dan.

Dan was silent, his face carefully blank. Phil finally realized why Dan might not have wanted to be up here.

“The view up here is incredible,” Phil said.

“Cool.”

“Yeah, it’s got brown hair, slightly curly from the humidity. A pouty expression, though that’s cute too. It’s even got that signature blush I was telling you about the other day,” Phil informed, and Dan laughed before punching him in the arm.

“Shut up,” he giggled, before carefully grabbing Phil’s arm and draping it around his shoulders. “It’s cold up here,” he blatantly lied.

And, oh god, how desperately Phil wanted to kiss Dan. He’d never wanted to kiss anyone more. His lips ached with the need to lean forward, to connect with Dan’s and let the fireworks explode.

“Oh, is it?” Phil indulged.

“Quite,” Dan smirked.

Then something passed over Dan’s face, something like determination mixed with fear and possibly… queasiness. Was Dan getting motion sickness? Was he scared of heights, even if he couldn’t see them?

But then Dan’s hand reached out, bumping gently into Phil’s chest, and Dan was biting his lip tentatively. He slid his hand up slowly, going around Phil’s adam’s apple and upward, until finally his thumb was resting on Phil’s lip, pulling it down slightly, just barely touching the inside of it.

Phil could hardly breathe, and he struggled not to pant on Dan’s hand, struggled not to make any noise at all, afraid one wrong move would send Dan running like a frightened rabbit.

And then he felt Dan leaning forward slightly in his seat, felt a little more pressure on the hand on his face, holding this chin a bit tighter as Dan leaned in, his face getting closer. He was tentatively biting his lip, and he stopped and hovered right above Phil’s, perhaps expecting Phil to shout and yell at him to back off, his face full of indecision and nervousness.

Phil couldn’t take it anymore, he was about to open his mouth and beg Dan to kiss him, when Dan finally found his own resolve and closed the remaining distance between them. His lips were careful against his, soft and warm. There was a light pressure as Dan leaned in, carefully, so carefully…

Phil couldn’t stand it. He wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist, dragged him onto his lap (thank god there weren’t any seat belts) and crushed their bodies together. He moved his lips against Dan’s, overtaking his careful pace with one precise swipe of his tongue over Dan’s lower lip.

Dan, predictably, gasped at the foreign feeling, and he pressed closer against Phil, hands splayed on his chest, as Phil introduced his tongue to Dan’s mouth again and again. Dan’s tongue brushed against his, hesitantly mapping out the foreign areas and textures. He let Dan venture his way into his own mouth, before sucking lightly on Dan’s tongue, making him moan in surprise.

Finding he loved that noise, Phil pulled out the big guns, prepared to snog the ever loving shit out of Dan Howell. He nibbled on his lip, battled with his tongue, sucked on Dan’s neck. They made out thoroughly, and neither of them realized when their ride ended.

“Er, should we interrupt them?” one ferris wheel controller asked.

“Give ‘em another go round,” suggested the other, and though neither Dan nor Phil noticed, the ride started again, sending them to the top all over again.

Needless to say, it was multiple rotations of the ferris wheel before they finally calmed down enough to get off the ride. Dan’s arm was wrapped firmly around his waist, Phil’s around his shoulders, and they were both unable to wipe the grins off their faces.

Every few minutes Dan would suddenly burst into giggles before pressing his face into Phil’s chest, where Phil would then kiss him on the forehead or place a finger under his chin, forcing his face up, and then press a kiss to his lips.

“Are you glad we went on the ferris wheel?” Phil questioned as they finally exited the festival.

Dan rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling relentlessly. “Shut up you berk,” he laughed, before, much quieter: “yes.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like 90% smut so if that's not your thing i would just skim for the cute parts at the beginning and end yep yep okay bye

"Read to me," Dan insisted, stretched out across his bed, his arms folded behind his head. He was extremely comfortable, wearing only a thin t-shirt and boxers. It was already night and they were at Dan's house for a sleepover. His parents were out for a party at his father's work, and they were left home alone, instructed not to drink or throw a party.

He and Phil had been dating for a week now, ever since they'd kissed at the carnival. They'd yet to tell anyone, not even Carrie, instead keeping it to themselves for a little while. Dan's face was constantly plagued with smiles, and he was always inching closer to Phil to press against his side.

This whole week had been a disaster (for Dan's grades, anyway) as Phil had convinced him to skip many classes, instead spending them tucked away in corners of the library or sneaking out side doors so Phil could drive them home.

"You look hot, Dan," Phil finally responded, ignoring Dan's request entirely.

Dan flushed, immediately becoming flustered and shy. "What?" he coughed, sitting up and tugging his shirt down, so it'd be sure to cover his underwear.

"Don't be embarrassed," Phil pleaded, the bed dipping as he crawled onto it. "You just look so good. Your hair's all messy and you're showing off your long legs."

"My hair's messy because you can't keep your hands out of it," Dan argued, and Phil laughed, still crawling forward. He stopped once he was in front of Dan, hovering over him slightly. Phil placed his hands on Dan's knees, sliding them downward and back up again.

"What did you want me to read to you?" Phil asked, throwing Dan off guard. He shut his mouth, just now realizing that it was hanging open (thanks to Phil touching him) and gulped.

"Harry Potter?" Dan suggested.

Soon they were both lying on Dan's bed, Dan having resumed his former position, flat on his back with his arms crossed behind his head, while Phil read to him. He was cuddled into Dan, lying on his side with one hand resting on Dan's stomach, the other presumably holding the book that he was reading from.

Phil's soft voice radiated throughout the room and Dan closed his eyes, drifting between sleeping and waking. Phil's hand had started to trail over Dan's stomach, having inched their way under his shirt.

Dan was leaning more towards wakefulness as Phil touched him, his warm fingers painting patterns on Dan's bare skin. It all started out innocently enough, but then Phil's hand went higher. He clearly didn't do it on purpose, that much was for sure, but his fingers brushed over Dan's nipple, and he jumped, sucking in a sharp breath. A tingle of pleasure had shot straight to Dan's cock as Phil touched him, though Phil apparently didn't notice, his hands sliding back down to circle Dan's belly button again.

A full two minutes passed before it happened again, Phil's fingers trailing upward, where they brushed over his nipple, the other one this time. Even whilst doing this Phil continued to read, not even pausing when Dan gasped again, his breathing speeding up.

But his breaths went right back to normal as Phil's hand drew downward once more, Phil having not noticed. The next time it happened Dan was prepared, and he bit down on his lip to prevent making any noises to alert Phil of the pleasure he was inadvertently making Dan feel.

Dan started to look forward to each of Phil's accidental brushes against the pleasure hot-spots, subtly arching into Phil's touch each time.

Suddenly, Phil's finger was drifting over his nipple again, and then again and again. Dan couldn't help his breathing now, and he was practically panting through his nose. He noticed that Phil sounded smug as he continued to read, and Dan had to end up biting his lip again to prevent any sound from escaping.

Phil's finger circled Dan's nipple, torturing Dan, until he flicked across it again. Dan was arching into Phil's touch unashamed, only just managing not to moan. And then Phil's forefinger and thumb came together, pinching Dan's nipple and tugging it gently, over and over again.

"Oh!" Dan gasped, unable to help it, and he heard Phil chuckle lowly in response but otherwise ignored him.

Phil was relentless, circling and touching and pulling and flicking, and then he was moving to the other one and doing it all over again. Dan was openly panting, his eyes shut in bliss, his chest rising and falling quickly, though constantly pressing further into Phil's fingers.

Dan, quite suddenly, realized that he was hard. And thanks to the fact that he was wearing nothing other than a t-shirt and boxers, one of those items being rucked up all the way to his chin, it was obviously on display. Dan blushed vibrantly knowing this, knowing Phil could look away from the book at any time and know just how turned on Dan was.

He couldn't help it though, Phil's fingers were like magic and Dan's nipples were pleasure centers. He realized distantly that he was moaning, quietly and through his teeth, but still. Even more distantly, he realized that Phil had stopped reading, and Dan had no clue when. Phil's full attention was on him, on his ministrations, which made Dan's cheeks pink.

"Phil," he panted, his nipples so sensitive that even the cold air was affecting them.

"Hmm?"

"You wanna have sex?" Dan asked, his bold words not at all matching his demeanor. He was nervous and shy but also filled to the brim with desire.

" _Yes_ ," Phil moaned, and Dan grinned. They were both virgins but they'd already picked up all the supplies they needed, knowing that sex was on the horizon.

Phil immediately clambered over Dan. He sat on Dan's lap (slightly below his erection) and leaned down. Dan moaned loudly when Phil's lips connected with his nipple, before his tongue darted out. Soon Phil was sucking on them, and Dan was clutching at his shoulders. The way Phil was positioned had their cocks rubbing together as Phil worshipped his nipples with his mouth, which was sending Dan's brain into overdrive.

"God, Dan," Phil whispered, finally pulling away from Dan's chest. "You're gorgeous."

Dan tugged Phil's shirt off, ignoring his anxieties about doing so, and ran his fingers over Phil's body. He was firm and lean, warm and soft, and Dan found himself unable to stop touching him.

"So are you," Dan panted, finally catching his breath now that Phil had stopped touching his nipples. Phil helped Dan tug his own shirt the rest of the way off, kissing his shoulders as he did.

He finally started kissing Dan, his tongue lavishing Dan’s mouth. Dan was so caught up in the kiss that he didn’t notice the other boy’s hand trailing down, not until it was cupping his groin and he was bucking into it in surprise.

“Oh god,” Dan whispered. “No one’s ever touched me there before.”

Phil kissed his nose sweetly, before squeezing his hand in response. Dan squeaked, grinding himself into Phil’s hand.

“I want to do so many things to you,” Phil groaned, working his hand slowly over Dan, who was sweating. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his mouth was in a perpetual state of being unable to close.

“Do them,” Dan begged, tossing his head to the side. Phil moaned at that, before inching his fingers under Dan’s boxers and tugging them off, letting Dan’s cock smack against his stomach. And then Phil was holding it, and Dan was sick of lying down. He scrambled onto his knees in front of Phil, clutching his shoulders as his boyfriend tugged on his arousal.

“Trousers,” Dan panted. “Off.” Phil made quick work of the rest of his clothes after that, and he paused as Dan tentatively reached out, trailing his hand down Phil’s chest. And he kept venturing down, further and further, until his hand bumped into warm flesh. Dan wrapped his hand around it curiously, grinning when Phil made a soft gasping noise in his ear. He tugged on it softly, paying extra attention to just underneath the head, which was really sensitive for Dan. He then dragged his thumb through the slit, wet with precome, which made Phil suck in a surprised breath.

Phil then removed Dan’s hand from his cock, tugging their bodies closer together. Their erections pressed together and they both let out moans at the foreign feeling.

Phil whimpered into Dan’s ear, as they rutted against each other’s naked bodies, both of them standing on their knees. Phil pushed him backwards, so that he was lying down again, but this time Phil was lying directly on top of him, still thrusting against him. Dan was bucking into the older boy, hands clutching Phil’s shoulders.

“So good,” Dan moaned, pressing his face into Phil’s neck. Their bodies were becoming slick with sweat, and various noises from their mouths and bodies were filling the room.

“Phil?” Dan managed to say after Phil moaned into his ear.

“Yes?”

“Fuck me?”

“ _Yes_.”

Phil backed away from him, letting them both get a little bit farther from the edge, and went to retrieve the lube and condoms. When he returned he placed his hand on Dan’s hip, before pressing his lips to Dan’s stomach. It was a cute gesture, and it made Dan giggle. He tangled his hands in the other’s hair, letting his fingers run through the soft strands.

“I’ll go slow,” Phil promised, before placing a kiss on Dan’s hip. Dan suddenly realized exactly where Phil would be touching him, embarrassment flooding his veins. It was such a personal area, so intimate, and Phil would actually be touching him there, be going _inside_  of him.

Phil lifted one of Dan’s legs into the air, and Dan covered his face in embarrassment. The fact that he was so on display made his face red, and he couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t fair that he didn’t get to see Phil like Phil was seeing him.

“Dan what’s wrong?”

“It’s just embarrassing,” Dan muttered. “Get on with it.”

“It’s not embarrassing, it’s sex,” Phil answered firmly. “Let me see your face.”

Dan kept his face covered, wishing Phil would just start touching him and making him feel good again. Phil turned his head to the side and kissed the side of Dan’s knee. “C’mon, I want to see your reactions.”

Groaning in annoyance, Dan removed his hands. “Better,” Phil said. And then there was a loud popping sound, likely the lube opening. Embarrassment flooded through Dan again, though he forced himself to keep his hands on his stomach.

And then cold, lube slicked fingers were touching his entrance, and Dan jumped because of the temperature. He settled back down though, and Phil continued to massage the outer ring of skin, wrinkled and sensitive. Dan shivered, and then Phil was pressing slowly into him. It felt weird, but not bad, and Dan scrunched up his nose at the foreign feeling.

“You’re cute,” Phil laughed, making Dan blush. Blushing made Dan remember that Phil’s fingers were _literally inside of him_  which made him blush even more. “Does it hurt?” Phil asked.

“No, just feels… weird,” Dan said, unable to resist scrunching up his nose again. Phil pushed his finger in and out a few times, before he actually moved it while it was inside of Dan, stroking the inside of him. It felt good, and Dan hummed in response to Phil’s movements.

Phil then warned him about putting in another finger, and he was stretching Dan slightly more. It tinged a little as it went it but there wasn’t any serious pain, and it brought sparks of pleasure with it as it slid back out. Dan liked feeling so full, and despite being nervous and embarrassed to have Phil touching him like this, he was also glad that his first time was with him.

Soon Phil had fit a third finger inside of him, and Dan was feeling pretty well-stretched, sure that he was ready for the real deal. He was about to tell Phil this, mouth already open to relay the information, when Phil did something different with his fingers. He crooked them to the side, in the process touching some obscure part of Dan, something that set fireworks off in his belly, that sent waves of pleasure flooding throughout his body. Dan choked on the words he was trying to say, instead bucking downward, slamming himself on Phil’s fingers, a guttural moan escaping his mouth.

“Fuck!” Dan cried, as Phil caught on and found that same part inside of him again. Dan’s unseeing eyes were wide because of the feeling, and his hands had formed claws in the sheets by his sides, tugging them restlessly. “Oh fuck, oh god!”

Phil removed his fingers, and Dan whined at the loss, but then there was a crinkle and the same popping sound from before was happening, and Dan knew that Phil was using the lube.

“Ready?” Phil whispered, leaning over him. One of his hands was on Dan’s hip, the other supposedly lining himself up. Dan swallowed his nerves, instead letting his excitement and desire shine through.

“ _Yes_.”

Phil pushed slowly, letting Dan’s body stretch around his cock. The older boy was already breathing heavier, and Dan struggled not to clench around the foreign feeling, instead holding his body relaxedly, ignoring the odd burning sensation.

“You o-okay?” Phil panted, still moving incredibly slowly. Dan nodded his head, and finally Phil bottomed out, his hips pressing against Dan’s. They stayed pressed together for a moment, giving Dan time to adjust and Phil time to calm down, before Phil started moving again. He pulled out slowly and pushed back in just as slowly, the full sensation making Dan feel hot and incredibly aroused.

“Faster,” Dan urged, and Phil finally started to pick up the pace. He slid into Dan more confidently, switching his angle over and over again until Dan cried out. “There! Fuck me— ah!— there!”

And so Phil did, fucking into him over and over again, hitting that one spot that made Dan, who never saw anything, see stars. “Oh god,” Dan whimpered, already feeling his orgasm building in his stomach.

Everything was warm, it was fast and slow, shaky and sure. It was slow and sweet and incredibly romantic, and then it was fast and hot and dirty.

“Phil!” Dan moaned, clutching to him. Phil sped up his pace even more, making pleasure explode through Dan with every thrust. “I’m—fuck! Phil, I’m close,” Dan managed, his unseeing eyes darting around sporadically, desperately. He had nothing he could concentrate on besides the incredible feeling of Phil inside him, and everything was building up too fast, too powerfully.

Phil moaned in response, before ducking his head and connecting his mouth to Dan’s nipple once more. Dan couldn’t help the sound that wrenched itself out of his mouth, the loud moan that vibrated in his chest. He started rambling, unable to control his words, thanking Phil and pleading with him, telling him to fuck him faster and faster.

Then Phil’s free hand wrapped itself around Dan’s cock, and pleasure was flying in from three different places all at once, and Dan couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d wanted to. All he could do was whimper as his orgasm was torn out of him, his body jerking in all different directions, not sure which pleasure to seek more of. Dan was letting out embarrassingly high pitched moans, his body was shaking with the orgasm flooding through his veins. He felt like little needle pricks of pleasure were invading his body all over, and his body sagged into the bed, completely spent.

Phil thrust into him one last time before he collapsed on top of Dan, moaning into Dan’s chest as his body shuddered, as his hips jerked sporadically into Dan. They both laid there panting, bodies slick with sweat, pressed against each other.

Finally, Phil pried himself off of Dan, letting himself slip out of the other’s body. Dan soon felt something wiping against the mess on his stomach, likely a shirt, and then Phil was crawling up the bed and collapsing half on top of Dan, holding their bodies together. “We have to do that again sometime,” Phil whispered, and Dan giggled beneath him.

His body felt heavy and tired, but he still wanted to take a shower, the sweat on him cooling and leaving him feeling gross and sticky. “I’m gonna shower,” Dan informed Phil.

“Can I come with you?”

Dan froze, thinking it over. There was no logical reason for him to say no, and he didn’t necessarily _want_  to say no, but he would be completely naked in front of Phil. Granted, he was completely naked in front of Phil right _now_.

“Sure.”

Phil climbed off of Dan, and Dan linked their hands when he stood up, too tired to navigate his way to the bathroom. Phil led him across the room, and he turned on the shower once they were in the bathroom.

The second the water was warm they were climbing in together, hugging each other close. Phil elected to wash Dan’s body, lathering his hands up with soap and dragging them delightfully all over his boyfriend. Dan stood there, blushing to the max as Phil’s hands touched him everywhere. He even insisted on washing Dan’s hair.

The only payback, of course, was to do the exact same to Phil. Dan did it much slower though, taking care to feel all the parts of Phil that he encountered, making up for everything he couldn’t see. Once they were both clean they simply stood in each other’s arms under the spray of the water, taking comfort in each other and the afterglow of their sex.

Phil kissed Dan’s nose, and Dan laughed, burying his head in Phil’s neck.

“You’re a dork,” he informed him. Phil shrugged.

“I’m your dork.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw warning for signs of physical abuse (not to dan or phil)

Phil woke with a familiar pressure surrounding him, which was starting to become something that happened pretty often. He pried his eyes open and craned his neck to look at Dan, who was curled up beside him, various limbs thrown overtop of Phil. His features were soft and relaxed with sleep, his mouth hanging open slightly. As Phil watched, Dan let out a tiny breath, before nuzzling his head into Phil’s shoulder.

Carefully, Phil untangled himself from Dan’s limbs and slid on top of the sleeping boy, whose eyebrows were now drawn down slightly in confusion. Phil pressed a soft kiss to the other boy’s sleeping lips, before trailing kisses along his jaw, down his neck. He sucked some of the warm skin into his mouth, kissing and sucking on it, a red mark slowly forming.

“Mmm,” Dan murmured, his hands coming up to tangle in Phil’s hair. Phil nipped at his skin then, and Dan’s breath shook, and then Phil was sucking on it again, even harder this time, and Dan was clenching his hair viciously in his hands.

Finally Phil pulled away, enough to see that Dan was panting slightly underneath him. His neck was shiny with spit and bright purple, which would probably be a pain to hide, though Phil liked looking at it.

“G’morning,” Dan mumbled, a small smile on his lips. He reached up and grabbed Phil’s shoulders, before flipping him onto his back. Dan followed, plopping himself on Phil’s stomach and burying his face into Phil’s neck. He then tugged the comforter overtop of them, snuggling into Phil even more. “And good night.”

“Nooo,” Phil whined, laughing. “We have to go eat breakfast.”

“Food _does_  sound good,” Dan said contemplatively, and finally he opened his unseeing eyes, staring blankly down at Phil. He smiled though, and pushed off of him, dragging the entire comforter with him. “Let’s go.”

Phil followed behind Dan-the-duvet-king, his blanket still wrapped firmly around his shoulders as they descended the stairs.

“Share that blanket with me,” Phil insisted, still a few steps behind Dan, who had reached out to touch the wall beside them just as they turned around the corner.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Dan answered.

“Then I’ll _make_  you,” Phil threatened. Dan let out a high-pitched giggle before taking off, one hand clenched firmly around the ends of the duvet, keeping it closed around him, the other trailing against the walls as he ran away. Phil gave chase, following swiftly behind Dan as he somehow confidently ran through his own home, tapping walls and furniture as he went. Suki soon appeared as well, running around Dan and Phil and barking excitedly.

“Suki, heel!” Dan gasped, still laughing, and Suki immediately appeared at his side. Dan latched onto her collar, still laughing, and yelled, “Suki, run! Front door!”

Suki took off, Dan bent over her as she didn’t have a leash, both his hands now occupied. Dan briefly let go of Suki when they made it to the front door, and then they were outside, running circles around Dan’s yard, the comforter dragging along the grass and getting even dirtier than it already was, as they were laughing and yelling and cheering (or in one case, barking).

At one point Dan even started climbing a tree, giggling madly, with his comforter still clutched desperately around himself, Suki was running around the trunk of the tree, barking and jumping, and Phil finally caught up, panting as he stood at the base of the tree, watching as Dan felt for new branches and pulled himself higher up.

Phil forced himself to follow, having a much easier time of it as he could actually see where he was going as well as the fact that he wasn’t dragging a heavy blanket with him. He scooted onto the branch Dan was on, resting his hands on Dan’s thighs as Dan clung to the branch above himself for balance.

“Dan,” Phil laughed, before leaning down and pressing his head against Dan’s shoulder, laughing into the crease of his neck. Dan was panting from the exertion, they both were, the blanket probably hot and uncomfortable around Dan’s body by now.

“We’re gonna need to wash this,” Dan finally said, and although he was talking about doing laundry, his face was encompassed by a wide grin.

“We also need to go _eat_ ,” Phil insisted. Dan laughed, and his lips looked so kissable that Phil did just that, taking Dan slightly by surprise.

Soon they were climbing back down the tree, Phil directing Dan, one hand on his hip at all times, before they were trudging back inside the house, Suki licking their legs as they did. Dan led them to the laundry room, where he ended up stuffing his duvet, and then they were headed to the kitchen. Phil stopped in the bathroom right beside the kitchen and Dan went ahead without him, hopefully figuring out something for them to eat.

It was as Phil was washing his hands that he heard footsteps passing, heading into the kitchen. He dried his hands, reaching for the door handle.

“‘Morning sweetheart,” Dan’s mum said sweetly. Phil opened the bathroom door, bumping immediately into Dan’s dad.

“‘Morning mum.”

“Sorry!” Phil said, and Dan’s dad shook his head with a smile on his face, reaching over to pat Phil’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it!”

“What’re you mak—” Dan’s mother cut off abruptly, and Phil and Mr. Howell shared a look of confusion before turning to look at the closed kitchen door. “Is that a _hickey_?”

“I— _what_? No! Of course not!” Dan protested. There was a soft smacking sound, which Phil took to mean that he’d slapped his hand over his neck in an attempt to hide it. Phil was blushing vibrantly, eyes wide, suddenly all too aware of Dan’s father standing directly beside him. He peeked at the man out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t seem too disturbed or angry, instead his hand was pressed over his mouth in an attempt to hide his amusement.

Dan’s mother suddenly broke out into laughter, and Dan frantically asked, “What? What is it? What?”

Through shaky breath, Mrs. Howell explained that, “You’re not even covering the hickey, Dan.”

Dan groaned loudly, and there was a loud thump, which Phil took to mean that Dan had hit his head on the wall.

“Well who gave it to you, then?” his mum questioned conspiratorially.

“ _Mum_ ,” Dan protested loudly. Phil glanced over at Mr. Howell, who was staring right back at him, his eyes full of mirth.

“Was it a girl?”

“Mum.”

“A boy?”

“M-mum!”

Mr. Howell, seeming to have had enough of this, placed his hand on Phil’s back and led him into the kitchen against his will. He shoved him lightly in Dan’s direction before going to stand by his wife.

“Hmm, who could’ve done this?” he questioned loudly and sarcastically, his hand rubbing his chin theatrically. Realization seemed to hit Mrs. Howell, and her mouth dropped open before turning into a smile. Dan and Phil stood stock still next to each other, faces flaming.

“You could’ve told me you two were dating, Daniel!” Mrs. Howell insisted. Dan and Phil still stayed completely silent, embarrassment flooding through their veins. “And how were you not surprised by this?” she asked, turning to face her husband.

“Well, there’s this big tree right outside the window of my office,” Mr. Howell began to explain. Dan groaned, slapping his hands over his face and then turning and burying his hands covered face in Phil’s shoulder for good measure.

“What?” Mrs. Howell questioned again, confused.

Mr. Howell shrugged. “They kissed in the tree this morning.”

And then Dan’s parents were laughing, leaning on each other as they did, and Dan was latching onto Phil’s hand and dragging him bodily from the room.

“Please make us breakfast, we’re _starving_ ,” Dan called out as he stomped from the room. He led Phil to the living room, still holding his hand, and curled up on the couch, leaning into Phil when he sat down as well.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Phil finally said. Dan chuckled.

“Could’ve been a lot worse.”

—

Dan’s hand was held firmly in Phil’s as they walked to Phil’s house. Dan’s cane was folded up and tucked in his back pocket just in case, but for now he was simply relying on Phil, letting himself be led by his boyfriend. They were mainly walking in silence, enjoying the gentle morning sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling in the wind.

Phil tried to ignore the beauty of the soft morning light shining through the leaves of the trees, instead trying to concentrate on his other senses. He had to use his sight, as he was currently leading Dan, but he tried to disregard it, tried to focus on the sweet scent of morning dew and budding flowers and sunlight. Tried to listen extra hard, to hear what Dan heard.

It was as they were walking that Phil realized they were passing by Kyle’s house. He stiffened slightly, instinctively. He hadn’t actually expected anything to happen, but of course, things never seemed to go right for Phil.

Suddenly, yelling erupted from somewhere in the vicinity of Kyle’s house, and Phil’s eyes locked on the garage door, sure that the sounds were coming from inside of it.

“What’s going on?” Dan whispered worriedly.

“We’re by Kyle’s house, someone’s yelling,” Phil explained. He’d stopped walking, had turned to face Kyle’s house.

“Fuck you, you good for nothing piece of shit! I should’ve kicked you out years ago!” someone yelled, the voice was distinctly male, echoing loudly inside the garage. Phil inched closer to Dan, his eyes wide with fear. What was going on?

“I wish you had!” a familiar voice yelled back. “Then I wouldn’t have had to deal with all this shit! I hate y—” Kyle’s voice was cut off by an echoing, sharp, crack. There was no cry of pain, but the sound was unmistakable. Kyle had just been slapped.

Dan and Phil stood facing the house, astonished. There was some more muffled yelling, and then the sound of a door slamming, and then the garage door was creaking and groaning as it slid open.

Kyle appeared, holding a large duffle bag, one side of his face bright red. He laid eyes on Dan and Phil, first looking surprised, and then scared. Finally he arranged his face into something like a glare, and he crossed his arms shakily.

“What do you want?” he demanded harshly. Dan, possibly not realizing that Kyle had been standing in front of them, gripped Phil’s hand tighter, shuffling slightly behind him.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked, ignoring Kyle’s question completely. Kyle glared at him.

“I’m fine, not that it’s any of your business,” Kyle barked. He hiked his bag higher up on his shoulder. Phil watched as his eyes flickered down to his and Dan’s intertwined hands, before looking back up at Phil’s face. The silence stretched for a few moments, and Dan shifted uncomfortably, likely wondering what was happening but too afraid to ask in Kyle’s presence.

Thankfully, Kyle said nothing, just hiked bag up higher once more.

“What’s going on?” Dan finally whispered, close to Phil’s ear.

Kyle gave him a bored once over, though his expression didn’t show any of the disgust or hatred he so often wore when looking at Dan. He just looked tired.

“Nothing,” Kyle responded before Phil could, having heard Dan. “Just getting what I probably deserve,” and then he turned around, limping in the direction Dan and Phil had just come from. His shirt was hitched up slightly because of his bag, and on his back were bruises littered on every inch of skin.

“Holy shit,” Phil whispered.

“What?” Dan asked, tugging on Phil’s sleeve. “What? What happened? What do you see?”

Phil tugged Dan in the opposite direction, continuing on his way to his house. “Phil?”

“It’s just… apparent that this isn’t the only time his dad has hit him,” Phil explained, still holding Dan’s hand tightly due to nerves.

“That’s scary,” Dan admitted, pressing closer to Phil.

“I know,” Phil agreed. “And I know he’s a bad person, but no one deserves that.”

Dan nodded his agreement, and they walked the rest of the way to Phil’s house in silence, this time lost in their thoughts rather than the beauty of the nature surrounding them.

When they arrived at Phil’s house they barged right inside.

“Mum!” Phil called, already heading into the kitchen. He was still holding Dan’s hand, seeing as he wasn’t as familiar with Phil’s house as his own and still hadn’t taken his cane out. Plus they were about to tell Phil’s parents that they were dating, so it wasn’t likely to be a big deal if they were holding hands in front of them anyway.

“Phil?” His mother called back from the direction of the living room. Phil abruptly changed course, causing Dan to stumble slightly as he headed for the living room.

“Sorry,” he whispered, hugging Dan into his side for a moment before linking their hands again.

Phil walked into the living room, dropping Dan’s hand and instead placing it on the small of his back. His father was lying stretched out over the couch, a book held in front of him with his reading glasses on. His mother was playing some farm game on her iPad, and they both looked up at them as they came in, smiling at them, though Dan didn’t see it.

“What’s up, love?” Phil’s father said. Phil lead Dan to an armchair opposite his mother, separated by a wooden coffee table, and perched on the arm of it, shoving his socked feet underneath Dan’s thighs.

“We just wanted to tell you something,” Phil answered, his confidence fading slightly and turning into nervousness. It’s not that he didn’t think his parents would accept his relationship with Dan, they already knew he was gay, it was just the whole… telling them, part. It was nerve wracking.

They both smiled encouragingly, and Phil took a deep breath to carry on. He glanced at Dan, who’d paled a little bit and shoved his hands under his thighs. It occurred to Phil that today had been the first time he’d even come out to his own parents, and now he was doing it for another pair.

“Dan and I are dating,” Phil finally said, reaching down and linking Dan’s hand in his. Dan’s head was ducked, his fringe falling over his face and his feet tapping anxiously on the ground. Phil squeezed his hand comfortingly.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Phil’s mum answered immediately.

“Great!” Phil’s father chimed in. They both stood up and rushed forward immediately, and Phil pulled Dan upward, prepared for the hug-fest.

“Hugs,” Phil whispered in Dan’s ear, before Phil’s mother engulfed Phil in a hug and his father attacked Dan with one. Then they switched, and they were both shaking Dan’s hands excitedly, telling him how thankful they were to have such a wonderful man dating their son.

“Of course, if you ever hurt Phil we’ll never stop hunting you down,” Phil’s dad threatened. Dan’s unseeing eyes widened, his lips pressing tightly together.

“You’re scaring him, Dad,” Phil complained, butting his father out of the way and wrapping his arm around Dan’s waist. Dan chuckled uneasily, and Phil’s father laughed.

“Are you two going to be public about your relationship?” Phil’s mum asked, her tone turning serious. Phil paled, having a feeling where this was going.

“Y-yes.”

“Even after your… experiences… at your last school?” she questioned.

Dan turned his head slightly towards Phil. “Wait, what?”

“We’ll leave you two alone for a little bit,” Phil’s mum offered, rubbing her hand on Phil’s back before walking out of the room, Phil’s father following behind her.

“What happened?” Dan asked again.

“Uh, nothing really,” Phil lied. “Some guys were just kind of mean, you know.”

“You can tell me,” Dan insisted, stepping closer to Phil and wrapping his arms around his waist. He tilted his head forward carefully until his forehead was resting against Phil’s, and then he rubbed their noses together in an eskimo kiss.

“Well, they didn’t like that I was gay,” Phil admitted, hugging Dan closer to himself instinctively. Dan slipped his hands under Phil’s shirt, running his fingers up and down his spine.

“Oh my god…” Dan whispered, kissing his cheek in an attempt to comfort him.

“They’d hurt me sometimes. If they thought what I was wearing looked gay. Or if they thought that I’d looked at them wrong. They’d trip me on the bus, in the halls. Eventually all my friends stopped being my friends to avoid them. I was fine though. I’m fine.”

Dan buried his head in Phil’s neck, squeezing him even tighter.

“Is that why you moved here?” Dan asked. “To get away from them?”

“Actually, I was expelled.”

“ _What_?”

“Well there was this guy, Jacob,” Phil explained. “I was in the bathroom and he touched me, y’know, inappropriately. I just… snapped. I beat him up really bad, I don’t even know how long I was kicking him for. My knuckles were bruised for a week, so were my toes. I could barely walk.”

Dan was hugging him tighter than ever, pressing kisses to his neck and jaw and cheeks and nose.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Dan whispered, and Phil sighed quietly against his ear.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, but you’re not alone this time.”

Phil laughed into Dan’s ear, before pressing a kiss to the side of his lips.

“I think it’s going to be really easy for me to fall in love with you, Dan,” Phil admitted.

“I think I’m already falling,” Dan whispered back, his cheeks pink. Phil kissed them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is the epilogue and then this'll be finished, i really hope you've all enjoyed so far! :D


	12. Chapter 12

“No,” Dan said, laughing, as he backed away from his friends. “No way.”

“Yes way!” Pj exclaimed, leaping forward and grabbing his hand, which Dan immediately dislodged. “We’re going and there’s nothing you can say about it.”

“But guys—”

“It’ll be fun,” Phil promised, his voice right next to Dan’s ear, warm breath spilling over it.

“I don’t believe you,” Dan said, leaning back into Phil’s chest. Phil wrapped his arms around Dan’s stomach, nuzzling into his hair.

“If you two could stop being disgustingly couple-y…” Carrie interrupted.

“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Phil responded, dragging Dan with him.

“Hey! I never said that I was going!” Dan protested, trying to dig his heels into the ground. Phil scoffed.

“You’re coming.”

“It’s _fun_ , Dan,” Dean persuaded. “Stop dreading it!”

Dan groaned loudly as they all made their way into the forest, Dan guided by Phil.

“It’s pitch black in here,” Jack commented, seconds before a branch snapped loudly and the tell-tale sounds of him stumbling forward rattled through the air.

“Yeah, I can’t see anything,” Dan responded.

“Me ne—” Dean began, before “Oh. Shut up, Dan!”

Laughter rebounded off the trees around them and they all continued on their way. Dan’s cane was folded up and shoved into the pocket of his hoodie, which was how it usually was these days. He rarely used it when he had Phil around, who was much more fun to hold onto than a cane was.

Soon Dan could hear the gentle sounds of water splashing up against a shore, and he squeezed Phil’s hand a little tighter as they all began to make their way to the shore, picking their way across rocks and stumbling down the steep slope. Immediately the sound of clothes being taken off surrounded Dan as his friends removed their clothes and piled them on the shore.

“You’re still wearing your underwear, right?” Dan whispered into Phil’s ear.

“If I say no, will you take off yours?” Phil joked.

Dan shoved his shoulder good-naturedly but remained in his boxers. Everyone began splashing into the lake soon after, relieving themselves from the thick, summer heat apparent even at night.

Phil and Dan made their way in together, still holding hands and moving slowly. Eventually they got far enough out and simply stood in each other’s arms, swaying in the water and spinning in their embrace.

“I love you,” Phil murmured, his lips pressed against Dan’s shoulders.

“I know,” Dan replied softly, bringing his hand up to stroke through Phil’s hair, making it wet as he did so.

“You’re ruining my hair!” Phil complained. Dan giggled, backing away as Phil followed him, likely trying to ruin his hair as well.

“No!” Dan laughed, becoming breathless as he ran unseeing through the water, trying to get away from Phil. He stopped suddenly, realizing he couldn’t hear Phil following him anymore. Had he decided to stop?

Then something gripped onto his ankle underwater and Dan let out a very manly sounding scream. Laughter filled the air as Phil emerged from the water, splashing Dan.

“No! I hate you!” Dan exclaimed, trying to squirm away from the arms that were suddenly locked around him.

“You love me.”

Phil grabbed Dan’s legs and wrapped them around his own hips. Dan clung on instinctively.

“Not after you splashed me.”

“Tell me you love me or else.”

“Or else what?”

Suddenly, Phil’s hand was plugging his nose, and Dan screamed, clenching his eyes shut as he was suddenly plunged underwater. It was over as soon as it started, and they were both laughing (and coughing) as they resurfaced.

“You’re a dick!”

“You love me.”

“Maybe,” Dan laughed.

He leaned towards Phil to kiss him, his lips hitting smooth skin.

“What am I kissing right now?”

“My cheek.”

Dan groaned, and Phil silenced him with a kiss.

And then water exploded all around them, the sound deafening, as their friends yelled and jeered and splashed water at them.

“Hold your breath!” Phil exclaimed, and then he was pulling Dan under the water by his hand, and they were swimming together.

And sure, Dan couldn’t see where he was going. He never could. But he trusted Phil, and he knew Phil would always be there to guide him. And in some ways, Dan was there to guide Phil, too.

And on very special nights, Suki guided them both. Phil would wear a blindfold and Dan would hold his hand, and they would appreciate the beauty of the world and each other on equal footing; blind, their senses enhanced, their love thriving. And they would never feel more alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh! wow so this is done now!! thank you to everyone who's read it and enjoyed it, i hope you loved reading it as much as i loved writing it! your comments have all been lovely and heart warming so thank you for that <33 if you want to continue reading chaptered fics that i'm writing then you should go check out misplaced (which i just started) it's where youtuber!phil and band au!phil get somehow switched and have to try to navigate through each other's universes


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